Figurehead
by EvilFluffyBiteyThing
Summary: Sequel to 'A Valuable Commodity': A year has passed since the events in the Badlands, and the death of Lucas Taylor. Now that the dust has settled, it's time to look back at that strange object in the crate. But there are discontented murmurings afoot in the Colony - and something's not quite right with the Commander...what lies ahead for the Community of Terra Nova?
1. A Bouquet of Wild Flowers

**A/N:** And I'm back! It's been along time getting this off the ground, but here is the first chapter of my sequel to 'A Valuable Commodity'. I'm afraid this one will be going up v-e-r-y-s-l-o-w-l-y as it's being written as I go; unlike 'Commodity' which was completed before I began posting it.

We pick up about a year after the events of 'Commodity', and that wooden elephant-in-the-room, the ship's figurehead, finally makes an appearance in my version of Season 2.

 **DISCLAIMER:** I own nothing of _Terra Nova_ other than the bits that have come from my imagination.

Reviews are welcome. I hope you enjoy!

* * *

 **PART ONE**

 **LIFE IS GOOD**

Chapter One

 _A Bouquet of Wild Flowers_

The air is warm, a soft mist rising from the trees as a startlingly ancient sounding dawn chorus commences - remarkable chiefly for its lack of recognisable birds.

Out in the growing sunlight, alone amidst the headstones of Memorial Field, Commander Nathaniel Taylor is seated alongside one that remains a permanent reminder of a loss that seems unlikely ever to heal. He has said nothing yet - sometimes he finds much to say to the occupant of that quiet grave, but at other times the words dry in his throat. Today looks like being one of those times.

The irony is that he has so much to say. In the year that has passed, the harvest has been good, people have pulled together and his little piece of heaven looks set to prosper, despite being populated by barely more than a thousand people. Perhaps the balance is more right than he realised.

He looks down again at his clumsily assembled bunch of flowers; the selection is always better at this time of the year - which is appropriate given that the commemoration is almost upon them again. Terra Nova: New Earth - a pipe dream to some, but a reality to him. If only he could have shared it with her.

Alicia.

It seems pointless to go over it all yet again - what does it achieve? She is still gone - he is still obliged to talk to her headstone rather than to her. Warm, breathing, living…then snatched away from him by his own son. A son that is now also dead - ironically by his own hand.

The interval of months between that moment when Lucas impaled himself upon that sword blade that he had not even raised yet to parry his son's furious approach seems not to have lessened that hurt - or his uncertainty that his act was as unintentional as it seemed to him at the time. Was it an accident? Did he hold it there even as the sharp edge sliced into Lucas's abdomen? The passage of time has served only to blur his memory of that moment - such memory as it is - and he is no more sure of his motives now than he was when he did it.

Above his head, he can hear the sound of a light breeze stirring the leaves of the trees that surround their cemetery. When he is feeling particularly credulous, he can almost imagine that the whispering sound is Alicia, comforting him in his grief and loss. When he lost Ayani, he had Lucas - or at least he did for a while - but now that Alicia is gone, and Lucas too, he has no one to ease that pain.

No - that's not quite true. He may no longer have a son, but he still has Skye - albeit in more surrogate terms. They still occasionally play chess together, and he is always welcome at the Tate table over Solstice, or on any other occasion that might arise. He has certainly forged a friendly relationship with Deborah, Skye's mother; but it goes no further than that. There is only one woman to whom he would happily pledge himself; and she is here. In a grave.

"It's stupid, isn't it?" he says, suddenly, "I should be better than this. You deserve better than this."

He rearranges the flowers, yet again, "So much to live for. So much to be proud of - if you were here now you'd be swatting me over the head and telling me to get with the plan. We're safe from interference - safe from everyone who wanted to take away what we created here. God, I'd rather be doing this with you at my side, Wash. You'd be in your element now - the only dangers we have to see off are the dinos. Everything I could've wanted out of this place is coming true; even if we don't have anyone new coming to us, at least we have enough of a community to survive and prosper. Everything's working just how I hoped."

Except for her, of course.

Taylor sits back and looks up at the clearing sky. Another fine day - though Carol, the head meteorologist, is convinced that there'll be storms later. If that happens, then they'll hold the commemoration in the large hall. Not that there's anyone new to add to that ceremony - no one died during the course of this year; though a foraging team came rather close to it three months ago when they accidentally disturbed a carno over its dinner.

Closing his eyes, he spends a few moments concentrating on that insistent whispering of the leaves as the breeze sets them to dancing.

 _Time to go, Nathaniel…you can't stay here all day, you know_.

He smiles to himself. Even if he is imagining her words, he knows that she's right. Not that he's done his usual trick of hiding himself away over the last few days: he can almost imagine her laughter at him if he still did it.

"No more hiding away, Wash." He says, firmly, "You deserve better than a week of stupid, maudlin sentiment, and I've done enough of that. Hope you don't mind one last bit of it," He adds, with a slightly self-mocking grin, "You're still with me - in here." He taps his chest, "And that's small enough to carry with me everywhere."

 _Idiot_. He can almost imagine her laughing tone of voice. Rising to his feet, he smiles at the headstone, "I'll see you next week."

* * *

Back in his office in the Command Centre, he reviews his plans for the Commemoration on his plex. Over the last year, he's changed his view of how they should remember the colonists they've lost; it's always been sober, sad and reflective - rather like his grief, in fact.

Not this year, though. Now that they are free from the threat of the Phoenix Group, the collective mood of the Colony seems altogether more upbeat, and he wants the ceremony to reflect that instead. Not being one for cheery songs and dance - his mood has always been far too serious for such frivolities - he has been rather pushed towards it by the altogether more optimistic members of his senior staff. No surprise, of course; they have much more to be chipper about - the Shannons being grandparents, and the Wallaces having just celebrated their daughter's first birthday. He may not have a family to celebrate with - but the time for imposing his own sadness upon everyone else is done. It's time to start looking more overtly towards the future, rather than wallowing in the past.

Abandoning his plex, he steps out onto his balcony to watch the market coming to life. The Terra Nova economy is a rather odd one: the produce might be grown collectively, but it's bought wholesale by stallholders and sold on through the market alongside additional items that are made by the colonists themselves. Thus those who do not work in the fields, or the labs, or elsewhere in the colony, can still derive an income for themselves. Egalitarian principles are all very well; but he has learned from experience that nothing brings a sense of purpose more than the satisfaction of honestly earned accomplishment. Without that sense of purpose, how long would they last?

His eye is caught by two people sauntering together along the outer boundary of the market, and smirks to himself. Of all the things he never expected to see - that one is most certainly right at the top. Still grinning, he heads back inside to his plex.

They've been working together as a team for a year now - but still people stare at them in bemusement. The colonists have welcomed Jim Shannon's security patrols for a long time; he is not part of the military units and thus has more of an air of 'one of us' than any of Guzman's colleagues. His companion, on the other hand, still causes slightly nervous expressions and a remarkable eagerness to be getting on with other things.

Her eyes narrowed slightly in the bright sunlight, Mira is still a singularly imposing figure - even though her rough garments have been exchanged for newer apparel that looks far less warlike - and her history still maintains that aura of uncertainty that keeps people very much on their toes when she's around. She speaks rarely when out in public, but there's no denying she enjoys that moment when people who might have been on the verge of an argument seem remarkably keen to make up and be friends as soon as they spot her. That alone has brought the numbers of people needing treatment for black eyes down to a very respectably low level. The colonists might well consider Jim to be rather easygoing when interrupting one of their spats - but certainly not Mira.

Sometimes, Jim wonders to himself if she's bored. Major incidents are very rare in Terra Nova, after all; and she once commanded what amounted to a guerrilla unit out in the forests. The most they've had to deal with over the last year are some minor thefts and a few drunken fights; and, while he appreciates the freedom from the life of a narcotics cop, he has no idea if her new role is too quiet and dull for a woman of her skill and intelligence.

"I want to check that surveillance camera out by the perimeter." She says, suddenly, as they exit the marketplace, "The undergrowth is getting too close to it again - and it was a favourite sneaking-in point."

Jim nods, "Sounds good to me." He decides not to ask about the sneaking-in comment - the implications are rather too obvious for that. Besides, a 'sneaking-in' point easily doubles as a 'sneaking-out' point, and he's not forgotten that awful incident when half the teens in the colony sneaked out for a midnight swim and nearly ended up as slasher food. Given that one of them was Josh, he is particularly keen to ensure that there's no risk of Zoe doing something similar when she's old enough.

"I read that story that Zoe wrote." Mira continues, rather more conversationally, "She's a talented writer."

In spite of himself, Jim beams, "Thanks. She's doing a great job in school." Being a cop, he's never been a creative type, and is generally convinced that all the talent genes in his kids were inherited from their mom. Maddy is proving to be an excellent biochemist, while Zoe's talent with words is growing to the point that even the adults are noticing how good she is. Josh, while he lacks those creative skills, is equally showing ability as a businessman, having turned Boylan's Bar into a well run and remarkably profitable enterprise, "She certainly didn't get any of that from me."

Mira snorts with amusement. She knows how much teasing Jim can take before it becomes offensive; and there are even occasions now when she is capable of making a joke. That she is even able to discuss Jim's kids is proof of how far she has come since she was obliged to re-assimilate herself into the Colony, knowing that she would never see her own daughter again. The pain's still there, of course - but she seems now to have accepted it to the point that it's a general background sadness, rather than a stinging torment. Either that, or she punches the hell out of her cushions when she gets home.

The undergrowth is looking a little close to the fence line, as expected, and Jim calls it in so that the maintenance crews can come and cut it all back again. Then they turn their attention to the residential areas, on the off chance that they might catch a burglary in progress, or something of interest. That they do so seems pointless given that such a limited population makes detection almost a certainty given that even Casey Derwin doesn't take stuff onto his stall if its origin can't be identified. Why steal something if you can't sell it on? The only fences in Terra Nova surround it to keep the dinosaurs out.

As always, they see nothing untoward, and continue their patrol out towards the agricultural barns and storage silos where the grain and soya beans are held prior to conversion into bread, cooking grains, milk and - Jim's particular bugbear - tofu. Thanks to the foraging teams who bring in fresh wild-meats, he has effectively banned the vile stuff from his kitchen - though Elisabeth is still inclined on occasion to sneak some in given that Zoe adores it. Something else she didn't inherit from him, then.

He is roused from his introspection by almost crashing into Mira as she pulls to a sudden halt, "What?"

"That's something new." She observes.

Following her gaze, Jim sees that they are facing a long wall of a vegetable storage shed, upon which a short phrase has been rather roughly painted:

DEMMOCRASY NOW!

"What the hell does that mean?" he asks, rather blankly.

"Only that someone can't spell 'democracy'." Mira snorts, dismissively.

"Wow. I thought that was just Malcolm."

"What, Malcolm can't spell democracy?"

He's about to respond, then sees her smirk. It's unavoidable that, owing to their beginnings, the Colony is hardly run along democratic lines - and Malcolm has always been singularly vocal about his opposition to what amounts to military rule. That Taylor is so careful to ensure that his senior staff are civilians goes some way to mitigating the lack of elected representatives, but perhaps it's inevitable that some of those who live here would be more appreciative of a larger council of some sort.

"I've not seen any overt protest before." Mira continues, more contemplatively, "Whether you like it or not, Taylor's doing a good job running this place. Even I can see that; but it does beg the question - if they can't spell it, do they really understand what democracy means?"

"Come on, Mira - even I know what it means."

"I don't mean a definition, I mean how much work it takes. People can be damned lazy when it comes to governance - they want someone to do their thinking and organising for them. Democracy takes a lot of effort - not just to get people involved, but to put the brakes on people who want to get _too_ involved. How many people here want to be on a governing council? Would they want to spend their time sitting in on meetings that cover crop yields, security issues and how much a terra's worth - or would they want people to be impressed because they're on a council?"

"Ah." Jim nods, "I get what you mean - I've seen it myself in Chicago; one of the guys on my team used to say that the more someone wanted to rule, the less fit they were to do it. He was talking about promotion, but the principle holds, doesn't it?"

"I'd say so."

Jim frowns as he re-reads the misspelled slogan. Seems like it's not just Malcolm who has a bee in his bonnet about now the colony is governed; best to keep an eye out over it, then. Hell - why is it that, just when they've got themselves safe from external trouble, internal trouble raises its head?

"I'll get one of the maintenance crews to clean it off." Mira says, reaching for her comm unit, "Either that, or I'll leave them marks out of ten for their spelling."

* * *

"Da."

"Da?" she smiles at the simple word, "Where's Da?"

"Da! Da!" it's the only word she says at the moment - being, after all, only just over a year old - though Yseult Wallace is quite convinced that there's been at least one attempt at a 'ma' in the last few days. Despite the intellectual brilliance of her father, Erin Leyna Wallace is still only a baby.

'Da' is not currently at home, being busy in his laboratory, and Yseult is in the process of dressing her daughter for her first day at the nursery. To say that she has been rather dreading this moment is something of an understatement; for, much as she is keen to return to work, Yseult is not at all keen to relinquish her child into the hands of relative strangers. That Malcolm has promised to come over and accompany them is a slight comfort, but nonetheless her wish to remain with the little girl for as long as possible is astonishingly strong.

Everyone is noticing just how much she's toned down his more annoying qualities. For as long as he has lived in Terra Nova, Malcolm Wallace has been fussy, demanding, self-absorbed and quite thoroughly tiresome. Much of it stems from a life lived almost exclusively in educational establishments - either as student or teacher - and the loss of his parents at a relatively young age; but until arriving in the Colony, and being surrounded by people who are _not_ academics, it had been his way of life. Consequently, it was hard to eradicate those most annoying traits.

Yseult, of course, has been responsible for the most deep-seated changes. Even she recognises that. Her own academic field - archaeology - is vastly different from his, as was her obligation to abandon her work before she could achieve the doctorate that she had originally sought when she first headed to Cologne to study. Once that might have caused him to pay almost no attention to her - as he was always astonishingly fixated upon how well qualified people were - but a stripe of smudged soot across his nose knocked that out of him, and she has always been grateful for it.

She looks up as the front door opens, smudging tears from her eyes. God, it's embarrassing - she's only taking Erin to nursery for the afternoon. Once utterly oblivious to the feelings of others, Malcolm has learned to become very astute to his wife's moods and quickly enfolds her in his arms as she weeps. She's had Erin all to herself for a year - an astonishingly long maternity leave for a colonist - and now she has to leave her baby while she returns to work. The perennial dilemma of the working mother.

"It's only for three hours," She sniffs, "but I feel like I'm abandoning her."

Malcolm says nothing. He has gained a far greater degree of self-awareness as a result of living in Terra Nova, and he knows that he is a true master of saying utterly the wrong thing and making a difficult moment even worse. Instead, he cuddles her tightly, and lets her tears dry by themselves - as they eventually do.

"Sorry." She says, as she disengages from his hug, "I'll get used to it eventually."

"Do we have time to make you a cup of tea?" He asks, unsure of the time she agreed to drop Erin off.

"Not really." Yseult looks up into his eyes, "But this cuddle will do as an alternative."

Malcolm watches fondly as his wife tends to their daughter. There was a time when he lived in a happy family home - until it was torn away from him by the machinations of politics when he was a mere ten years old. To regain that happiness was not something on his agenda when he decided to escape the dying world into which he had been born; but then he looked into Yseult's eyes as they discussed something as mundane as carrying out a spectroscopic analysis of a steel bloom - and that had led him to a new home, and that happiness had followed in its wake.

He prefers to avoid thinking of the hardships that came with it; that's done and in the past. He confronted the bad memories, accepted them and moved on. Mostly. There are still occasions when his nightmares engulf him in a multitude of scorpions - but he always fights awake to find Yseult beside him, and that in itself is enough to banish those lingering horrors away.

"Come on." He says, "Let's go - we can take it slowly."

She nods, "The last thing I want is to have her freaked out by us rushing." He is not surprised at the sound of reluctance in her voice. Maddy was just the same when she first enrolled Elisabeth Rose into the nursery.

Despite their destination, she enjoys the simple pleasure of walking out with her husband and daughter. Malcolm is carrying Erin, as his return to work has prevented him from having as much contact with her as he would have liked, and she is as close to him as always. The pair of them have perfected a means of walking so close together that people who see them wonder how it is that they don't trip each other up - and it seems sensible to keep in practice.

Maddy is arriving as they reach the doors of the nursery; though Elisabeth Rose has been there for some time now and is generally resident all day. She does not say so out loud; but it's clear to Yseult that Malcolm has asked her to come to offer some moral support, having already gone through this particular parental wrench. She may be considerably younger, but in terms of motherhood, she has at least a small degree of seniority and experience. Besides, any opportunity to meet little Erin is always welcome.

The nursery is run by a brisk but kindly Canadian by the name of Sharon, who is married to one of the construction engineers. She has seen this scenario many times - both here in Terra Nova and back in her establishment in one of the Domes just outside Ontario - and has learned from experience that the best move is to effect the handover as quickly as possible. That she has been visiting Erin at home on a weekly basis for the last three months also helps; something that would have been impossible before she came to the Cretaceous.

Yseult's expression as Malcolm carefully hands their daughter over is as familiar to Sharon as that of any other mother seeing their child consigned to nursery care. She knows that Erin will be well cared for, will be safe and have lots of fun with the other children and the nursery staff - but nonetheless it still feels like a betrayal, "She'll be fine Max. Don't worry - well, try not to." She adds, smiling kindly, "I've got all your instructions on her likes and dislikes. Any problems and I promise I'll call you." She forestalls the inevitable request. She's heard _that_ one more times than she can count, too.

"Come on, Max." Maddy intervenes, as Yseult dithers rather, "I'll take you for a coffee and you can offload onto someone who's been there." She turns and smiles at Malcolm, who nods gratefully. It's nothing like as hard for him, of course - he's been back at work from paternity leave for nearly nine months. Watching them depart, he turns briefly to see through the doors that Sharon has already introduced Erin to Elisabeth - as close to a best friend as a small baby can have - and the two are busy with large plastic building blocks under the watchful eye of a nursery assistant. Clearing a rather choked throat, he turns and heads back to the labs.

* * *

Sitting at a table in the former bar, which now serves as a form of office, Mira turns over her thoughts about who scrawled that illiterate demand for voting rights on the wall of the barn. Having been obliged to forcefully lead a disparate group of men and women in a far harsher environment than this one, she is well aware of the considerations involved in governing a bunch of people who resent being led and are quite convinced that they could do a better job themselves. The remarkable misspelling of the word 'democracy' seems odd to her - no one who came here in the pilgrimages would have been lacking in education - lottery or no. Results of the draws were kept under wraps until those who were selected had been carefully evaluated to be sure that they would thrive in a vastly different world. For all its benefits, the Cretaceous is not a place for the lazy, weak or faint-hearted. Clean air, clear water and good produce compensates for a multitude of things - but the work required to obtain the produce is hard, and the effort involved in keeping everyone safe is equally onerous. Not even Taylor sits in a metaphorical ivory tower, ruling from upon high; he works just as damned hard as anyone else - if not harder.

She has always been highly observant of those around her, and learned even in the short time that she lived in the colony before her departure into the forests that most accepted the form of martial law that governs life in Terra Nova. Yes, Malcolm was known to whinge about it, but even so, he never pushed it beyond that low-level griping. What if someone had said ' _think you can do better? Go on then!_ '? Some might think they could - but regardless of his rather inflated ego, Malcolm was never one of them.

She looks up as Jim sets down two mugs of coffee, "God know what this is like," He advises, "Josh says that it's another experimental blend courtesy of Pete and Louis. No one could get it right except Geoff - but they're trying."

Taking a sip, she grimaces, "They need to _keep_ trying. There's far too much robusta in this."

"Is there anything you _don't_ know?" Jim bristles, sitting down.

"Never had much success with Russian." She grins at him, which startles him almost as much as the admission. He's so used to her looking downcast or scowling that a smile is still a solid rarity, "Talking of the coffee blenders, when are they going to get their act together and make it official? They've been practically joined at the hip for nearly eighteen months now."

"God knows; but I'm not the best man to ask." Jim admits, taking a slug of coffee and nearly choking over its rough bitterness, "Jesus - that's harsh."

"Like I said; too much robusta." She turns back to her plex, "I took a picture of that graffiti. God alone knows who did it - but they're either dyslexic, uneducated or trying to pretend they are. I'm amazed they didn't use a K instead of the first C."

"That'd be taking the distraction too far." Jim suggests, leaning over to look at the picture, "Deliberate misspelling only works if it's at least vaguely subtle. I've seen enough semi-literate spelling in my time - and most don't spell _every_ single word wrong."

"It might be worth raising it with Taylor. Just so he's aware that someone's got a grudge of some sort."

"I'll bear it in mind." He looks up then to see Maddy arriving with Yseult. From the metalworker's expression, it's clear that something monumental has just occurred.

"Ah. She's dropped Erin off at the nursery for the first time." Mira observes. Jim stares at her; how the hell does she figure that sort of stuff out?

"Is that some sort of women's intuition?" he hazards.

Mira glances at him, pityingly, "Max told me she was due to start nursery today. Maddy's been through it, so she's offering moral support." She translates, not quite using very slow words - but almost. That said, he can see that she herself is looking rather pained. Her own daughter is stranded in the future, and there's no reunion on the cards for them. Rather than withdraw, however, Mira rises to her feet, "Excuse me." Leaving her coffee behind, she crosses to join the two arrivals.

That is, perhaps, the most surprising thing: everyone else in the colony seems to regard her with the conviction that it's only a matter of time before she does something precipitous and deadly, but Yseult has done the exact opposite. While his own relationship with the woman who came in on the Sixth has transformed into one of equal respect, though not quite friendship, the two women have forged a remarkable bond - and Yseult is probably Mira's only real friend in the Colony. How Malcolm takes that, Jim can't begin to know - after all, he has a whole stack of bad memories associated with the woman - but he loves and trusts his wife, and that must give him the will to ignore his animosity towards Mira.

He can see from where he's sitting that Mira is welcome, and joins Maddy and Yseult at another table for a while. Considering it to be none of his damned business to watch any further, he transfers his attention back to Mira's plex and that bizarre photograph.

"Democracy Now." He says to himself. He'll need to keep his ear to the ground; though it's likely that Mira will have more success at that - her fellow exiles are thoroughly assimilated into the community now, and the faltering of their association with her might give them access to those underground rumblings that always feed painted sentiments on walls. Jesus - why do these people think that graffiti is a valid means of protest? Taylor is many things, but he's no demagogue - he _wants_ to know if people aren't happy. After all, you can't solve a problem if you don't know it exists.

He sighs to himself. He's no politician, and has no time for politics - besides, in what way does Terra Nova need politics? There's a solid line of reporting and command; Taylor is the only military figure in the senior team - everyone else who heads up the departments is a civilian. Okay, they haven't been voted in - but nonetheless, they represent the interests of those who report to them. He himself looks after the security matters that Guzman provides to him, while Elisabeth covers health matters. Malcolm looks after the science and agriculture side of things, while Yseult deals with the low-tech industrial stuff. Taylor's even asked her to be the go-to person for the construction teams given her knowledge of metalwork and engineering. She might be an archaeologist by training, but most of her work these days is based on experimental reproduction of older technology, so who better?

Shrugging to himself, he shuts off the plex to conserve its power - no point in annoying Mira by running her plex's battery down. He'll keep an eye out for any more outbreaks of discontented paint daubings, but for the time being, he has other things to think about.

* * *

"Thanks for the tea, Mira." Yseult says, wrapping her hands around the mug.

She shrugs, "It was either that or some of the worst coffee ever brewed. You need to persuade Pete to find someone else to do the coffee blending - he's terrible at it."

Yseult laughs, "I keep telling him to stick with Geoff's recipe - Josh has got the roasting down to a fine art, but it was Geoff who knew which beans worked best." She looks up again, "This can't be easy for you."

Mira pauses, "Perhaps not - but I can't change what happened. If I can't see my girl again, at least I can step up and be a godmother to yours. If nothing else, just to wipe those shocked expressions off everyone's faces." Her lip curls into a skewed smile.

Yseult laughs, "Oh yes - we caused quite a stir with that, didn't we? Everyone was expecting to see Pete take on that responsibility - but when I asked you as well…"

"I thought Taylor was going to choke." Mira looks a little more sober, "I'm still surprised that Malcolm didn't fight you over it."

"I didn't push him into it, Mira." Yseult says, "It took a fair bit of negotiation - but he suffered the consequences of someone blaming him for the decisions of other people, and I think that helped him to see that you were in something of the same boat."

"He's still struggling though."

Yseult nods, "Yes - I know. He'll come round in the end - he's rather better at adjusting his opinions that most are. I think it's something of the scientist in him - he works on the basis of empirical evidence. If the evidence tells him something opposite to what he thought to be the case, then he changes his opinion. He's still in the process of doing that with you."

"He's a good man."

"He is."

"Irritating as hell - but a good man."


	2. A New Project

**A/N:** Thanks for the review, Jemmz - glad I'm off to a good start! Now that the Colony's settled again there are a couple of 'elephants in the room' that need to be tackled, and I aim to do so with this story. Enjoy! As always, reviews are welcome.

* * *

Chapter Two

 _A New Project_

The atmosphere in the marketplace is rather less sombre than it once was on such an occasion; which seems rather odd to everyone present as they are all used to coming together to mourn the lost. Today, however, the little folk band is playing a cheerful shaker song, and Sandra's choir has assembled on a makeshift stage - the intention to approach commemoration from a different angle could not be clearer.

Standing alongside her husband, Elisabeth Shannon holds Zoe's hand and smiles at her steadily growing youngest daughter, "I wonder what the choir's going to sing."

Zoe shrugs her lack of knowledge of the matter, "I think it'll be good, Mom; whatever they do." Despite her talent as a writer, she has no real ear for music; but she certainly appreciates it if the collection on her plex is anything to go by.

The gathered colonists wait as Taylor climbs up a few steps towards the Command Centre to turn and address them, "I know what you're all thinking." He begins, "Why haven't I gone into hiding this year." He pauses at the mild ripple of sympathetic amusement. Everyone seems surprised at his failure to go into seclusion - and equally surprised that he seems so self aware about it.

"Well, I decided this year that we need to stop looking backwards." He continues, "Terra Nova's never been a place for regrets - it's about looking to a good future for us, and for our kids. Everyone who came here wanted a new life - and they're still with us even if they're not here. I want us all to celebrate their time with us, and be glad that they knew a clean world, and a good life. Even if it was only for a while. So, no poems, no speeches - just a gathering to talk and remember; but, before we do, Sandra and her crew have some music for us."

He steps aside, while Sandra - looking rather nervous at having to speak - addresses everyone, "There's no need to stand and watch - we want this to be an accompaniment. Feel free to wander about, and to talk - Sal's got the grills going, so enjoy the afternoon."

This is definitely new; but the looks on people's faces suggests that everyone's open to it, and before long, people are milling about while the Choir and band run through a selection of astonishingly disparate music that is by turns reflective, uplifting and even humorous.

His arm tightly about Elisabeth's shoulders, Jim feels a great deal less of a fraud for being present when his family has come through entirely intact. So many people here are commemorating lost loved ones - whether it was through natural causes, syncillic fever or even the occupation. In his case, of course, there was Washington. Not a member of the family, admittedly - but she put her life on the line to get his family out of the compound, and paid the ultimate price for their escape.

As he looks about, he can see even those who returned to the fold from their exile are being made welcome - those who were once referred to collectively as 'sixers', and disliked intensely as such. He remembers one of them in particular; Carter - once a failed assassin, but now a valued member of Guzman's security teams. Quite a turnabout - there's even a suggestion of friendship with Dunham and Mark Reynolds, his son-in-law.

The soldiers that those exiles were preparing for, on the other hand, are largely gone; and as he looks back on it, Jim is struck by the sheer banality of their destruction. They weren't prepared for failure - the Colony was not supposed to have fought back against their invasion, after all. With only the dread Badlands to flee to, they headed out into the most hostile environment he can think of - and there they all faltered and died. He still can't begin to imagine why they stayed there as long as they did; even Mira has no answer, and she was out there with them for almost all of the time.

She's over on the other side of the marketplace, he notes, in close conversation with Yseult, while Malcolm stands nearby and does a very bad job of not looking distinctly uncomfortable about it all. To be fair to him, he is trying - he loves Yseult and doesn't want to impose his will upon her, but nonetheless, his bad memories get rather in the way of his own relationship with the tall, strong woman who towers over his diminutive wife - so he instead concentrates on Erin, who he is carrying against his hip.

He turns then as Taylor crosses to join them, "What brought this on?" he knows Taylor's limits when it comes to questioning his motives.

"I've been brooding for too long, Shannon." Taylor says, "We need to be more positive about the future - you can't do that when you're fixed on the past. We're free to make this place work now, so let's get to it."

Jim grins, "I thought that's what we were doing."

"There's still one thing we haven't looked into."

The Shannons exchange a bemused glance, until Elisabeth remembers, "The figurehead." She says - though her voice is low. Everyone knows that there's something that came out of the Badlands, but only the senior team know what it is. They were, of course, free to ignore it while the Phoenix troops were out there - why go into hostile country when it's crawling with enemies, after all - but now the enemies are gone, and the whole inevitable business of 'where did it come from, how did it get there' is rearing its head.

"I'll be bringing it up at the next briefing." Taylor affirms, "Don't want any more nasty surprises out of the Badlands, do we?"

"Talking of nasty surprises," Elisabeth smiles, "Your medical's overdue, Nathaniel. I expect to see you in my office tomorrow at ten. No excuses."

"I walked right into that one." He grimaces.

Jim grins at him cheerfully, "You certainly did."

* * *

Yseult is gradually becoming used to the inevitable wrench of leaving Erin in the nursery while she heads out of the main compound to the other end of the Colony. Far from the residential areas, her department is the noisy, dirty part of life in Terra Nova, where she, and her team of disparate hobbyists and experimental archaeologists, continue their ongoing work to prevent them all dying out if their technology ceases to function.

When she first began to work here, the blast furnace for iron was a small, backyard-style affair. The principle remains the same, as there isn't the space for a full-scale ironworks, but they've scaled it up to a degree that they can now manufacture basic iron for engines, mechanical equipment and structures. She's still trying to work out a backyard-scale equivalent of the Bessemer process, so there's no regular prospect of steel for the time being - but they've got to the point where there are two looms producing cotton fabric for the colonists to wear, and that is - to her - an achievement in itself.

Her deputy, Pete, is out in the forests working on the coppices, so she makes herself a coffee and looks through her schedule for the day. Ninette, her head weaver, wants to talk to her about refining their weaving process to the point that she can manufacture the cotton gauze that Elisabeth Shannon is so keen to obtain for wound dressings, while her new chief Engineer, John, is working on recreating a steam engine to potentially take over the powering of the looms if they need more of them. Water power, of course, can only do so much - but the risk to the environment of starting a small-scale equivalent of the industrial revolution within the colony is something that she knows Taylor will find objectionable. If they can find a clean fuel to do it, however, it would be a useful extra technology to have to hand once they run out of components to recharge their batteries.

"Projects." She says to herself, cheerfully, "I _love_ projects."

She looks up at the sound of a knock on the door of her rather basic office, and her expression is immediately keen at the sight of her assistant, Ben, "Is there a problem?"

He shakes his head, "The exact opposite, Max," He grins, "I think we might've cracked the conversion to steel. If it works scaled up, we can get to it with Raj and Alfredo over in construction."

"Raj'll love that," she smiles, "He's been desperate to get his hands on proper steel for years - there's no way we can make more aluminium, and you can only recycle for so long before it stops being any use for struts and joists."

"Oh, I don't know. I've always rather fancied trying out a timber-frame house. They look so quaint."

"If you're that keen, I'll put you onto wattle and daub development. I'm sure you'll love being up to your elbows in mud."

He grins at her, "I think I'll pass on that."

Even as he departs, the thought sticks. What if they do need to look towards wooden building frames? Almost without thinking about it, she is making a note to research historic building styles.

* * *

Elisabeth consults her plex, "I think it's safe to say that, based on these records, you're disgustingly fit, appallingly healthy and look set to live probably forever." She jokes.

"Sounds good to me." Taylor approves.

"No, that doesn't mean you get out of this one." She laughs as he pretends to rise from his chair to depart, "We'll be finished in twenty minutes at the most."

She is as good as her word, working her way through the battery of tests with brisk efficiency. Despite his reluctance, Taylor proves to be a compliant patient and objects to nothing - not even the resolutely old-fashioned nature of the blood test, which requires the pricking of a fingertip to produce a small red blob from which the bio-bed's diagnostic systems can deduce the same degree of results that would once have required at least three phials of the stuff.

"Have you been bitten?" she asks, suddenly, as Taylor scratches crossly at his shin.

"Again." He snorts, "Damned insects get all over the place. Believe me, it's not the worst place I've been bitten in my time."

At her prompting, he pulls the left leg of his combat pants out of his boot to reveal a muscular, hairy lower leg that sports a cheerfully livid red lump, "Itchy as hell." He says, "But when aren't they?"

Elisabeth laughs, "I'll get you an antihistamine. That should ease the itch. I've seen a lot of these over the last couple of weeks - but it's the season for it, so I'm not surprised. It'll go down by itself - but only if you don't scratch it to pieces."

"Hard not to - but it's better than a scorpion sting. Glad they've made 'emselves scarce over the last year or so."

Her plex beeps as she hands over a small tube of ointment, "There. All done - everything's excellent, as always. Whatever you're doing, keep it up."

"I'd say it was living here, Doctor." Taylor grins, "Never been better."

"It's working a treat, that's for sure: your blood pressure's ideal, all your blood tests are fine. There's a slight deterioration of the sight in your left eye, but that's perfectly normal for a man of your age."

"A man of my age?" he asks, cocking an eyebrow.

"I think, in your case, it's something of a moot point. For someone so healthy, you're remarkably reluctant to prove it by having your medical." Elisabeth reproves, not entirely seriously.

"So I'm scared of doctors." He laughs, "Everyone's gotta be scared of something."

* * *

The stack of aluminium kegs looks most impressive, though the contents is yet to be tested. Despite having access to taroca root again, Tom Boylan has tapped into a rediscovered love of other brews, and his latest batch of cider is resting in front of him, ready to try.

While he's been making cider happily enough, the apple cultivar that he and Pete have been working on is still growing - and the trees are too young to fruit. Thus he continues to use the fruits from the trees that surround and protect the edible varieties in the orchard, and the quality is never guaranteed.

Busy with his books, Josh Shannon looks up briefly as his former boss - now business partner - dithers momentarily over the nearest keg. Opening the first of a new batch is always risky, as Boylan cheerfully bolsters up the anticipation of the patrons for the new cider. If, as has happened on occasion, that batch is off, people tend to be distinctly irritated.

"There's only one way to find out, Tom." How many times has he watched this? It's almost like a ritual. Snorting with mild amusement, he returns his attention to the plex. Business is excellent, and the bar is making money in a way that it never did while Boylan used it solely as a place to sell booze, and his attempts at diversification travelled largely into underhand, illegal territory. Not that he's too willing to complain; Boylan's behavioural traits came in very handy when they were fighting to save their home.

Eventually, as he always does in the end, Boylan drives in a tap, and extracts a stream of golden liquid into a cup, "Now to find if it's perfection or pee." He says, as he always does, and takes an exploratory sip.

The lack of a spat-out spray suggests that he's got something akin to his description of 'perfection', and he sets the cup down with a cheery grin, "Never had a doubt."

"Of course you didn't."

Skye returns to the bar, tray in hand following a delivery of coffees to a few stallholders who've sold their wares for the day, "So, not whiz, then?"

"I'd say, 'whizzo'." Boylan drawls, "Not that you North American types would know what that means."

"Do you?" she asks.

"Nope."

Laughing, she sets the tray on the barn and leans over Josh, her arms over his shoulders, "How are we doing?"

"Really well." He says, with satisfaction, "That folk music gig last week really pulled in some terras."

"We'll be able to have a cider launch night." Boylan confirms, looking up from another swig from his glass.

Skye disengages herself, "I'll see if the band are free."

* * *

Malcolm is not one for wandering around fields; the laboratories are absolutely his domain, and responsibility for the agricultural developments is one of his less welcome tasks. Like many of those who work in the fields full time, his lower legs are encased in leather - in his case a rather nice pair of fitted gaiters that one of Yseult's friends made for him last solstice - in case he encounters another one of those blasted scorpions. The fact that they seem to have died off means nothing; he was stung by one, and lying helplessly on the floor of a locked room, waiting to die, is an incident that still haunts him on occasions. As the sun is high, he has a wide brimmed hat upon his head, and his khaki jacket - coupled with the leather gaiters and his resolutely British accent - gives him the air of a Country Squire reviewing his estates.

Chris, the head of the Fields Division, is awaiting him amongst a large expanse of pea plants. They've tried peas before, but an influx of pests proved such a problem at the time that they were obliged to abandon them. Since that minor disaster, careful cross-pollination in the hydroponics labs has resulted in a new strain of plant that seems altogether more resistant to whatever the Cretaceous has to throw at it.

"These are looking good." He observes as he joins his colleague.

"Nothing's hit them yet, Malcolm," Chris agrees, "And they don't seem to be too interested in spreading around like a marauding weed, so we might have something growable."

"Have you tried them?" That's always the killer question with vegetables.

"Not yet. I thought we'd both give 'em a go. Nadia's tested them for toxins, so we know they won't kill us or make us puke - but that's not much use if they taste horrible."

"Sharing the pain?" Malcolm asks, cheerfully.

"Or the pleasure." Chris replies, "You never know." Still grinning, he plucks a pod and opens it, "Shall we?"

As he chews at the peas that Chris has extracted, Malcolm looks up, "Who's that?"

"Hmm?" Chris mumbles through his mouthful, then swallows, "Oh, that's Bob Parker - one of our orchard staff."

"I take it he's glaring at us for a reason?"

"I think I pissed him off last week. He wanted to be put in charge of running the orchard while Lorraine's on maternity leave; but I've got Pat, and he was an estate manager in Tipperary. Bob's competent, but he's never managed anything - I go with the qualifications and experience. I can't afford not to."

"We've all been there." Malcolm shrugs, "These are good, Chris. If there's nothing you're not telling me about, I'm happy to sign off on these being planted out in the next growing season."

"I'll post my report by Monday."

* * *

Clutching a handful of pea pods, Malcolm saunters back towards the Compound in the growing shadows of late afternoon. It's nearly time to collect Erin from nursery, and he promised Yseult that he would get her, as his wife is going to be overseeing a charcoal burn this evening. It's the first she's been present at for just over a year, and he has more-or-less insisted that she get back into it again. If the worst comes to the worst, like an epic tantrum or _Exorcist_ level projectile vomiting, he can always go to Elisabeth for help.

His comm unit pings as he approaches the nursery, and he fetches it out, "Commander?"

" _I need you to review some records for the staff meeting tomorrow._ " Taylor's voice squawks out of the unit, " _It's time we started looking into the contents of that crate from the Badlands_."

As he terminates the call, Malcolm wonders whether he is keen on the idea, or would rather let sleeping dogs lie. He might well have laid those ghosts to rest when they went out to the remains of the Phoenix encampment, but the memories are still raw. The prospect of exploring the origins of that ship's figurehead is both fascinating, and unnerving. How it got to the Badlands, which reality it came from? So much that he can discover - but what if it opens a huge can of worms that might have been better left sealed?

Once, he might have leaped upon it as a purely scientific conundrum - but that was before he gained a wife and a daughter. Yseult might well be a highly capable and independent woman, but nonetheless, he still finds himself keen to protect them from all comers, as his vague memories of his father suggest that he was equally protected in his childhood.

Erin is sleepy as he collects her. She's too large for a sling these days, but no one has pushchairs here, so he rests her on his hip, and carries her home as she chatters incomprehensibly about her day. Language is still something to be learned, and so they talk to her all the time. As her vocabulary still consists largely of the words 'Da' and 'Ma', conversation is somewhat limited, but she's happy to see him, and that will do for now.

Fortunately for her slightly clueless father, she's tired out after a long day of play, and does not object to the bedtime routine. He's utterly terrible at reading stories to her - something at which Yseult excels - but he does so anyway, and Erin drops off accompanied by a rather embarrassed recitation of _The Cat in the Hat_.

Returning to the living room, he sits down with his plex and calls up the pictures and initial assessment he assembled of the figurehead when Commander Taylor revealed it to them. Eighteenth Century, wind-worn and eroded, it has a haunting ugliness to it that is rather unnerving. He hasn't identified the wood; though what little he knows of ship-building at the time tells him that it's almost certainly oak. There's no way to know how large the ship was, so he can't begin to guess where it might have foundered, or how.

In spite of his misgivings, the questions are already piquing his curiosity. Things are running well in the fields and in the labs - so he needs a challenge to occupy him as they move towards the latter half of the year.

Pleased with his decision, he shuts down his plex, sets the baby monitor, and makes his way to bed.

* * *

The meeting has been progressing well, until Jim moves on to the item of graffiti that he and Mira discovered on their patrol, "It wasn't me." Malcolm jokes, "I spell 'democracy' with a 'k'."

Yseult looks up from her plex, smiling. As always, her left hand is resting upon her husband's leg, while her right holds a stylus to make notes on her plex. Taylor, on the other hand, looks less amused, "I'm not sure we're ready for more people sitting around this table."

"I think we'll have to consider it eventually, Commander," Elisabeth suggests, "While we're not going to have any more people coming to us, the community's growing as we have more children. What we have now works very well - I'm not denying that - but most of the people here have come from communities that once knew democratic government that was taken away from them; and sooner or later they're going to want to flex their electoral muscles."

Taylor sighs: he's a military man through and through; used to giving, and receiving, orders that are obeyed without question. That he's surrounded and outnumbered by civilians now is a struggle to accept given that the entire enterprise began almost as a military outpost before they began to accept families. The structure as it is works well, and the idea of handing the control of his colony to people who don't appreciate the sheer degree of operational _minutiae_ that occupy his days and nights is deeply uncomfortable. He's never been a power hungry individual, nor does he rule the colony as a demagogue; but, nonetheless, the colony is the only offspring he has left, and giving up that sense of fatherhood is difficult to contemplate.

"Maybe in time, Elisabeth," he says, after a long pause, "but not right now. I'm a big believer in 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' - and there's nothing to say that we're 'broke'."

Malcolm opens his mouth to object, but shuts it again. Although she hasn't seen it, Elisabeth knows that Yseult has stepped on his foot; her regular signal to him that now is not the right time. As she has a degree of social perception that he completely lacks, Malcolm has learned to accept and trust her unspoken advice.

No one has anything more to say on the subject, so Taylor moves on, "The one last thing I want to discuss this morning is something that you don't know about, Max. So it's time you did - unless Malcolm's already done the honours?"

"If you're about to mention what I think you're about to mention given your message yesterday evening," Malcolm advises, "Then, no."

Yseult smiles, "I know what the rumours have said, Commander. Nothing more. I know that something was found out in the Badlands - and it was something remarkable. But I don't know what it was."

"Well, you're about to find out." Jim says, with surprising trepidation.

"Actually, I think it'll be useful, given what you were before you came here." Taylor advises, "It's almost an ideal project for you, in fact."

"You want me to put my archaeology hat on?" She asks, intrigued.

"Potentially. I'm going to look to the science angle first - but I'd like to have you on standby." He looks across to Malcolm, who nods, "Actually, it was something I've been thinking of recently, Commander - I've cleared most of my ongoing projects for the moment, so I was going to put in a request to start work on studying it."

"And 'it' is?" Yseult prompts.

"I think it's better to show you than describe it to you." Taylor advises, "Come with me."

* * *

It's been nearly two years since Malcolm last laid eyes on the crate that Mira and her team brought back from the Badlands. He's had images to look at, yes - but to actually _see_ the contents again is something that he is both intrigued, and nervous, to confront. The crate is the last remaining symbol of an obsession that came close to costing him his life; but at the same time the implications tangled up with the contents of it is so intriguing to his scientific mind that he is eager for the Commander to open it and reveal what awaits within.

They are inside a large storage shed, and no one else is present. Even now, Taylor is keen to avoid too many rumours escaping into the community, as they don't know at all what they're dealing with. Until he's as sure as he can be that what they are exploring can't lead to more danger for the people in his care, he wants nothing getting out.

He approaches and keys in a code to unlock the crate; and, with Jim's help, he lowers the door to reveal the canvas draped object that it is both protecting, and concealing. Her eyes wide, Yseult grasps Malcolm's hand tightly as the canvas is pulled away to finally uncover that object of which she knows next to nothing.

"It's a figurehead…" she says, softly, "This was found in the Badlands?"

Taylor nods, "Sure was. No idea how it got there - finding out is your project, Malcolm. I want to know where it came from, how it got here, and what that means for us."

"I'll get to work on it this afternoon, Commander," Malcolm agrees, "I take it that we're keeping it here? I could do with some assistance - would it be okay to get Bram involved?"

Taylor frowns briefly, then remembers: Malcolm's new Lab assistant, Abraham Fox - though he goes by the name 'Bram', "He needs to keep it quiet, Malcolm. I want this staying under wraps until we know for sure that there's no danger for the colony."

Malcolm nods, and turns his attention back to the weather-worn wooden figure. Beside him, Yseult is looking over it with equal interest, and everyone present knows that she is almost certainly going to get involved at some point - it couldn't be more obvious that she is as keen to examine it as her husband.

"I'll speak to Bram later, Commander," Malcolm advises, rather absently, his attention almost fully grasped by the figurehead before him, "and I'll have a project outline on your desk by the end of the week."

With Jim's assistance, Taylor raises the door again, and attempts to suppress his misgivings. They need to know what the hell that thing was doing its the Badlands - but in some ways, he'd rather leave things as they are. Now, he just has to hope that whatever they discover about it won't come back to bite them on the ass.


	3. Matters of Governance

**A/N:** Thank you for your reviews, Leona - much appreciated! Yes - I've got a lot going on, and I'm only three chapters in! The theories are coming - as I'm aiming to keep myself one chapter ahead of publication. Hopefully they'll be plausible - and suitably 'science-y' to be appropriately Malcolm-ish. Nothing, if not a challenge!

As always, I own nothing but what I made up myself - and I hope that I can keep the momentum going. Reviews are welcome!

* * *

Chapter Three

 _Matters of Governance_

The latest batch of cider has certainly gone down well, but there is another string to Boylan's bow, and one that he is waiting for with rather more uncertain anticipation. As the barley failed to be of use, he has turned instead to spelt, as per Yseult's recommendation. Similarly, no amount of searching revealed a source of hops, so he turned to Yseult again for assistance, resulting in an astonishing accumulation of herbs, roots and God-knows-what-else that she, and a sympathetic biologist, identified as the closest Cretaceous equivalents they could find to the pre-hops alternative for bittering and flavouring beer. Her recipe is something of an embarrassment to her German sensibilities, however, as it's Belgian.

Given the uncertainty of her gruit, Yseult has not been willing to be too optimistic over the likely result of the contents of the second set of aluminium kegs, a reflection shared by her brewing partner.

"So, what's actually in it?" Skye asks, as he broods over the collection.

"God alone knows." Boylan admits, sourly, "I left that to Max - and she's not sure either."

"And I thought she was a beer expert."

"I think that expertise is in drinking it, not making it."

"Be fair, you two." Josh calls across from the bar, "She never made any promises. She's too smart for that."

"Why d'you think I haven't old anyone about this?" Boylan calls back, "If it's cloudy and pissy, then at least no one's waiting for it."

Skye looks at him, cheerfully surprised, "What - you? _Not_ boasting about an impending flood of booze?"

"I'll boast about it when it's worth boasting about." He advises, rather cynically as Skye laughs and reaches for a tray of coffees to deliver to a table.

Unaware of the progress of her recipe, Yseult sits at one of the tables in the labs with Bram as he works his way through a set of results, "I think this'll work best with a thicker cotton fabric than the one you're creating at the moment, Max."

She nods, "I know; I've got Ninette working on a means of adjusting one of the looms to create a heavier twill fabric that'll be tougher than the plain weaves we've been getting so far. I think our ultimate target is gabardine - it'll be tough enough to work as a coat."

"If we can work out a feasible way of extruding this compound, then I'll be able to get you a cellulose fibre akin to rayon - but I wouldn't know where to start on creating an appropriate extruder."

"That's okay - I'll talk to John and Ryuu. John's a walking encyclopaedia of industrial automation - and whatever he can imagine, he and Ryuu always find a way to build it. Even if it takes them a year or more to get it right - they get there in the end."

They look up as Malcolm approaches them, plex in hand, "Don't get up, Bram, this is something I want to discuss with you as well as Max." He draws up a chair and sits down alongside them, "I've been working on a project outline for the figurehead. I think we can easily do some spectroscopic scans, and derive some radioactive signatures to investigate how it got here - but it'd really be helpful if we can identify the ship. I can't do that myself, so I'll need to bring you in on the project, Max."

"I thought you might." She smiles, "And you even have a good reason for it. No guarantees, I'm afraid - it might be possible to work out a vague date for the building of it, but unless there's a good identifying mark of some kind, I can't say with any certainty that we'll be able to actually name it."

"I can sort out some radio-carbon dating, Malcolm," Bram advises, "I'm no expert with dendrochronology, though."

"I can do that, Bram." Yseult says, "Well, I'm not a dendrochronologist, but I've got one in my Engineering department. I don't have to say where the cores come from, and I think that a collective effort might work that out."

"You've got a dendrochronologist in your engineering department?" Malcolm asks, surprised.

"Of course. If we're stuck for metal - we've got more wood than anyone could ever want. She specialises in identifying woods, their hardness and their age - and I recently got her to work on researching timber framing for buildings. We've never needed it here - but what if we do?"

"You think of everything." He smiles at her, admiringly.

"I try."

"Assuming we can get an age for the wood, and a species," Bram continues, grinning at them, "is there any way to work out what ship it might have been?"

"Er…" Malcolm looks rather stumped.

"Possibly." Yseult muses, "We can go through shipping records. Lloyds of London digitised all of their written shipping lists over a century ago, and that was all uploaded to the Eye; I suppose they did that to ensure that a record of human achievement and misadventure survived even if humanity didn't - but it's dead useful for us."

"We'll work on the testing first, I think." Malcolm says, checking his plex, "I'll see what that reveals, as it's a starting point to see if the figurehead came from the same reality as ours. If it didn't, then there's no way for us to take matters further - it just wouldn't work as we don't have any records except for our own."

"Fair enough." Yseult smiles, "I've got enough on as it is; but I think Charlie might be disappointed, so I'll keep it quiet for now. Besides, I've got another appointment. Tom Boylan's opening his first beer keg this afternoon. I rather think my reputation as a beer expert is riding on whatever comes out of it."

"Rather you than me, then." Bram grins, "That sounds like a hell of a responsibility."

"Thanks, I think."

* * *

It's been a quiet morning, as usual. Between them, Jim and Mira have seen absolutely no arguments, no fights and not even a hint of a theft. He feels a bit of a fraud on such days, as he is undertaking crime prevention patrols in a community that sees very little of it; though, when something _does_ happen, it tends to be a tad more spectacular than most. How ironic that he has seen more attempted murders than he has seen thefts.

He doesn't mind, of course - there's nothing worse than an ongoing investigation that is making no progress. It was a fact of life in Chicago, and he felt that helpless frustration again last year when Malcolm was being threatened by an unknown assailant who left so few clues as to his identity. That's all over, now - and the degree of stability in the colony is as much of a relief as it is an annoyance. Mira has said more than once that she would rather be bored than consoling distraught colonists.

They haven't seen any more scrawled sentiments of a political nature since Jim raised the matter at the staff meeting, but Mira's been keeping her ear to the ground, "I haven't found anything overt," She says, as they stroll down a residential lane, "but I think we both know that this was going to happen sooner or later. Now that we're an independent entity, people are going to want more control over their lives. From what Greggs was saying, it's just low level resentment that Taylor makes all the decisions pertaining to the future of the colony."

"Except it's not just Taylor." Jim objects, "He doesn't do that - we have a say, and we get input from our departments."

"He picked you lot. You're his team," She reminds him, "When people don't know how they're being governed, they tend to draw their own conclusions. That's where conspiracy theories come from."

"And what about his surgeries?" Jim counters, "He opens his doors to anyone who wants to talk to him. If there are people complaining that they don't get a say - and they haven't been to see him, then they haven't got a leg to stand on."

"At what point did I say that people are rational?" Mira smiles, "Half the time, the people who demand change are the people who want others to do the actual work involved. They're just happy to complain about it."

"As long as that's _all_ they do."

Mira falls silent again as they continue on their patrol. He's used to this by now - though he used to find it deeply uncomfortable. Instead he checks his watch and realises that he needs to get back to the Command Centre to discuss the new security rosters with Taylor. Excusing himself, he leaves her to continue and wanders back to the marketplace.

It's busy today, as the weekend is approaching, and most people still treat it as two days of rest. The hunters have been out again, and their bounty is set out in refrigerated boxes for shoppers to buy. Someone's been trying gallusaur charcuterie over the last few months, and the results are only just becoming available, to the excitement of those who get excited by such things. Not being one of them, Jim eschews the hanging sausages of dinosaur salami and makes his way to the steps up to Taylor's office.

"I don't know. It might work - but it might not." Taylor's voice intones beyond the door. As he's clearly got someone in there with him, Jim pauses, then turns to lean out over the balcony and wait his turn.

"I think it'll be worth expanding the patrols outward," He continues, speculatively. He must have Guzman in there then, "I don't want us being caught out."

Taylor falls silent, and Jim waits for the doors to open - but they don't. After a while, the Commander continues, "Sure, get some rovers out there - but make sure you're armed. I nearly had a carno feast out there a few weeks back, and I don't want to see another one."

There's another silence, followed by laughter, "You always do. Get to it."

 _Who always does?_ Jim wonders, bemused, and waits for the anonymous, silent individual to depart. But still the doors don't open, and he frowns. Who the hell's in there with Taylor?

Rather than wait, he knocks on the door and enters at Taylor's invitation to find that the only people in the large, airy room are himself, and the Commander. Busy with his plex, Taylor doesn't look up for a few minutes, and Jim wonders whether to risk asking who the visitor was. Deciding that discretion is the better part of valour, he remains silent - assuming that Taylor will volunteer the information.

"You got those rosters for me, Shannon?" Taylor asks.

"Er - yes." Jim blusters, startled, "Just sent 'em."

Taylor's plex pings to announce a message, and he opens it to peruse the new roster. Again, he remains silent, and Jim dithers over whether to ask him who was in the room with him. And chickens out.

"They look good," Taylor says, approvingly, "roll it out."

Jim nods, and decides it's best to say nothing about that bizarre conversation - after all, he's said nothing at all since he got into the room - but there's no sign of a comm unit on the desk, not to mention the complete lack of that squawking tone that tinges a voice responding on one. Was there someone in the room? Or not?

Cross with himself for his failure to enquire, Jim picks up his plex and departs.

* * *

Elisabeth looks up from her plex, "Are you sure, Jim?"

"As sure as I can be; Taylor was having a conversation, and there was no one in the room with him."

"And he wasn't using his comm unit?"

Jim shakes his head, "No sign of it, and you'd hear an answer if he was using one. It's not like they come with headphones."

She frowns, "That sounds very odd."

"Any ideas?"

"From what you've just told me? Absolutely none whatsoever. I need a bit more than an anecdote to perform a diagnosis. I certainly didn't see anything in his results to suggest a physical reason for it - but then I'd probably need to do a much wider ranging scan than a standard medical if it's something neurological."

"Could it be?"

"As I said, no idea. I'm a doctor, Jim; not a psychic - diagnoses come from a presentation of symptoms. So far, I don't have one." She smiles then, "I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation - but we can keep an eye on him and see if it happens again. There are any number of reasons why he might have been talking to himself."

"That's just it, Elisabeth; I don't think he was. There were long pauses: like he was listening to an answer." Jim lowers his voice as a nurse wanders into their proximity to check some stocks of medication.

"Well, short of demanding that he come in for another battery of tests, which he'll fight every step of the way, there's not really a lot that I can do." Elisabeth advises, sagely, "If I can find a reason to get him in, then I'll see what I can do, alright?"

"Alright." He accepts a kiss on the cheek, then responds with one of his own. He knows that Elisabeth is right; but nonetheless, there was something about that strange, one-sided conversation that has unnerved him quite considerably. If Taylor's becoming sick, then who'll lead the Colony? There are no succession arrangements - no plans for the future governance of Terra Nova if they lose him; and how the hell does he raise an issue like that with the man anyway? There's no doubting that he's the best leader that they could have - committed, passionate and determined to succeed - but still…if there's something going on with him…

It's a train of thought that he doesn't want to follow any further - but it seems that circumstances are not going to play ball today. His comm unit buzzes.

" _Shannon, you'd better get out to the sheds. There's another one_."

He groans inwardly, "Gotta go, Elisabeth. I'll see you tonight."

As he has no idea what Mira meant by 'sheds' he assumes that she means the same agricultural sheds that served as the canvas for the last painted sentiment. She is there - and so is a new slogan.

TAYLOR OUT!

"At least there's no spelling mistakes this time." Mira observes, cynically, "Only someone who really doesn't get how this place works would want that. Even I know better than to think that we don't need him."

Sighing inwardly, Jim retrieves his plex and photographs the painted legend to compare with the one he has of the previous one, cleaned off only a few days ago. The scrawl is the same - largely - and it looks as though the same red paint has been used. As they don't have Decorating Stores in the colony, it could only have come from one of the Construction sheds; but that means pretty much nothing. There's nothing toxic or dangerous in those sheds, so they're not heavily secured. The builders and repairers are in and out of them all day every day, so it's not hard for someone to sneak in if they want to.

"It's at times like this that I wish we had forensics teams." He grumbles, "I guess I'll have to call in CSI Wallace."

Mira snorts with amusement at his joke, then rises as Jim fetches out his comm unit, "He'll be stoked. You know how much he adores being torn away from his science stuff."

"Isn't _this_ 'science stuff'?" Mira counters.

To Jim's surprise, Malcolm acquiesces to his request almost immediately, and arrives at the site with a toolbox after only ten minutes. They've long abandoned their combative behaviour towards one another, so he wasn't seriously expecting an argument over it. Still, given how busy Malcolm can get, it's still surprising that he's arrived so quickly.

"Someone's not happy, then." He observes, looking up at the slogan as he crouches over his toolbox, "I take it you want me to analyse a paint sample?"

Jim nods, "And see if you can find any brush hairs in the paint."

"I should've got some samples from the last one." Malcolm says, largely to himself, as he carefully chips flakes of paint into a plastic screw-top container, "I'll run some basic analyses on this, and hold the results for comparison if there are any more."

"You think there might be more?" Jim asks, though he is thinking much the same.

"Someone demanding democracy, and then that Taylor go? I'd say it's highly likely."

Of all the times for this to start happening; first Taylor having that strange conversation with no one, and now someone's clearly demanding that the governance of Terra Nova be changed. If it's true - and Taylor _is_ losing his fitness to head up the Colony - the last thing they need is a power struggle. The Colony might be rather small for a civil war, but people falling out over who leads them is never going to be the best way forward.

Jim is tempted to advise Malcolm of his strange encounter with Taylor - but is torn over it. The fewer who know, the better - but Malcolm's a member of the senior staff, too; and he's proved himself more than capable of keeping things quiet when he needs to. Besides, he might have another perspective on it - he was raised in an altogether more politically aware household, even though it was only for the first ten years of his life. Not to mention his resentment at Taylor's rather authoritarian stance when they were still trying to track down the spy.

"You busy tonight?" he asks, "I think Elisabeth's planning something special for dinner - and you and Max haven't been over in a while."

"I'm not; but I'll have to check with Max - I don't think there's a charcoal burn tonight." He pauses, clearly about to mention the dread word 'babysitter'.

"Erin's welcome, if you wan't to bring her. Elisabeth loves having her to coo over."

Malcolm returns his equipment to the toolbox, "I'll call Max and see what she wants to do. Give me about half an hour to let you know?"

"Great." Jim beams, and wonders if that'll be long enough to persuade Elisabeth to do what he's just promised.

* * *

Dinner is a cottage pie made with vegetables and mycoprotein, as Elisabeth insists there wouldn't be enough time to prepare a filling with minced gallusaur. Jim's rather downcast expression draws little sympathy, "Just be grateful it isn't beancurd."

To be fair, her disgruntlement is largely feigned, as she always enjoys having the Wallaces over for dinner, and Zoe has already arranged to spend the evening at a friend's house, so she is not obliged to share a dinner table with four grownups discussing boring, grownup things. Besides, given Jim's concern over Taylor's behaviour this morning, it's no surprise to her that he wants to talk to Malcolm and Yseult without Taylor present - and there's no better way to do it than over dinner.

While he knows that there's an ulterior motive for doing it, Malcolm has brought a bottle of elderberry wine courtesy of Julia, the Colony's ever-busy and experimental vintner, while Yseult is bearing a container filled with a remarkably good artisan spelt beer that she was most relieved to find inside Boylan's beer keg at the afternoon's tasting. As the visiting couple bring the wine, this is to be expected, so most would assume that they are merely socialising; but it's clear from Jim's expression that this is a cover for something far more serious.

"You overheard Taylor talking to no one?" Yseult asks, as she helps Elisabeth with the dishing out.

"Not a soul there. I swear to God." Jim says, "He didn't have his comm unit handy, and I didn't hear it being used. Besides, it sounded like a security thing - and he talks about that to me."

Yseult and Malcolm exchange a bemused glance, "He wasn't pulling your leg?" she ventures, though her expression proclaims that she's as doubtful about that as Jim is. Taylor's propensity for the playing of practical jokes is so limited that the very suggestion that he might do so seems a joke in itself.

"Before anyone asks," Elisabeth interjects as she sits down with her plate, "no, I don't have a diagnosis. As it's only happened once, and Jim didn't _see_ it happening, I can't begin to speculate. There was nothing thrown up in his last medical - but it's designed to evaluate physical fitness; if there's something neurological, it wasn't specific or strong enough to be picked up by those tests. I'd have to do a more specific scan of the Commander's central nervous system and brain to see if there's something we missed."

"Has anything else happened that might suggest a problem?" Malcolm asks, "I haven't seen anything - but the Commander only comes to the labs if there's a reason to, so I tend not to see him outside staff meetings."

In spite of the circumstances, Jim smiles inwardly; there was a time when Malcolm would have been speculating about the Commander's fitness to run the Colony on the basis of that statement alone. Now, he is looking for stronger evidence before he makes any such assessments - it just goes to show how much he's mellowed in the last three years.

Everyone exchanges glances, collectively racking their brains to think of something that might explain that odd conversation in the Command Centre, but no one ventures anything.

"I think, based on what no one's said," Elisabeth advises, reaching for her glass of wine, "that our best approach is to carry on as normal, but keep a watch on the Commander in case there's another occurrence."

"That sounds good to me." Jim agrees, "I'm still hoping I got the wrong idea."

There's no point in continuing to speculate, so everyone gets on with consuming their dinners and chatting, though it is perhaps inevitable that matters make their way onto Malcolm's new project.

"I've nearly finished my project outline," He reports, "it's going to be a two-pronged approach - the first being whether it's from our reality or not. That'll largely determine stage two - if it's from the same world as ours, then we can use our historical records to investigate it more thoroughly. Otherwise, we'll be largely stuck."

"Do you think it might be from our reality?" Elisabeth asks.

"There's no way to be sure without testing it. Travel through a portal leaves a signature at the molecular level that's detectable and identifiable - both in organic and artificial material. I can't be sure whether it's unique to a particular reality - as it's never been definitively determined that this _is_ a different reality. Given that there's no evidence of the initial probes, or a community, from this period in the world we left, it suggests that it is. I'd rather not consider the implications for us if it isn't."

Jim looks at him a little blankly while he works his way through the science, but as he unravels it, he shudders. If this _is_ the same reality as the world they left, and there's no sign that Terra Nova ever existed, then it means that they failed, and died out.

"Let's suggest that this _isn't_ the same reality - but that the figurehead has come from ours." Elisabeth says, "What do we do then?"

"It's a bit of a long shot," Yseult picks up, "but we're going to see if we can identify the ship that the figurehead came from. If we can identify the cultivar of the wood, then it'll narrow it down to a country of origin and possibly even a date that the tree was felled. That'll open up some options to speculate on the likely routes the ship could have sailed, and maybe track down an identity for it."

"You could do that?" Jim asks.

"Potentially, yes. Shipping records are incredibly extensive, even as far back as the eighteenth century. Ships all around the world were registered with Lloyds of London. It'll be a seriously long shot, though. Some are better recorded than others - but all shipping losses were recorded."

"If we can identify the ship, and find out whether it was 'lost', and even _when_ ," Malcolm continues, "Then we can start working out how it got here. It's a safe bet that it came through a wormhole - but how did it happen? What triggered it? Is it something that's constant, or something that builds up and discharges?"

"Okay, that's too technical for me." Jim interrupts.

"It's also getting ahead of ourselves," Yseult agrees, "If we can't be sure that the figurehead's from our reality, then that puts us back to square one. We'll know it came from another reality, and that's about it."

"Either way," Elisabeth muses, "It's going to open a huge can of worms, isn't it? I can think of an ever-expanding list of 'what ifs' that come wrapped up with it."

"You're not the only one." Malcolm agrees, "I think I've got about as much chance of keeping this quiet as I have of walking on water - but if we don't investigate it now that we've go the freedom to do it, we could find ourselves facing consequences that we knew nothing about. I'd rather be prepared for them, I think. When I was out in the desert, I was wondering why the soldiers were where they were, and why they'd stayed there regardless of the danger they were facing. I'd assumed it was because Lucas was so obsessed that he'd lost his perspective - but now I'm not so sure."

"What do you mean?" Elisabeth asks, surprised at his statement.

"Just a thought." He explains, "I'm guessing, really - but his fixation with getting back to the future was strong enough to keep him in the Badlands long after living there had become unviable. I'm wondering if he was doing it because he was waiting for something, but the end of the camp came first."

"So we're picking up where he left off." Jim says, intrigued.

"I think so - but as he didn't tell me anything of any use, I'm approaching this from the proverbial square one."

As Elisabeth and Jim are gathering the dishes together, Malcolm checks his plex, "Oh, by the way, I've got the relevant spectroscopic signatures for that paint. No surprises, I'm afraid. It's standard exterior paint from our stores - and the brush hair looks likely to have come from one that was imported from the future. I'll keep these on record, so we can check any more - and we can compare the slogans to see if they're being written by the same person. I won't be able to tell who that person is - but at least we'll know if we're dealing with one person, or several."

"I'm hoping it's one." Jim says, "It's easier to deal with one person than a group. But I'll keep an eye on it."

"Are we ready for a council, do you think?" Yseult asks, "Is it worth having a think about it, at least?"

"Until Taylor gives it the okay, I don't think so." Jim shakes his head, "We're going behind his back enough as it is."

"We're going to have to sooner or later, though." Malcolm says, "I don't know about you - but I wasn't immortal the last time I checked."

They sit over cups of herb tea, each with their thoughts. It's true - they're going to need to have something ready for a time when Taylor is no longer here - and they, too, are gone. Terra Nova needs to have an ongoing system of government that is not vested in the leadership of one man. It's not as though Taylor has ever pretended to be a king, but nonetheless, everything is so built upon that leadership that the consequences of losing it are shocking now that the spectre is more overtly hovering over them.

"If we do it," Malcolm says, eventually, "It needs to be on our terms - we need to make sure that it's not a free for all. Proper systems of nomination, proper elections. If we don't, it could all go horribly wrong - the last thing we want is people fighting over who gets to run the Colony. It all runs smoothly at the moment, so whatever we do, we need to keep it running smoothly." He looks across at the carry-cot, that Erin hasn't _quite_ grown out of, "I don't want Erin to go through what I went through."

Yseult takes his hand, and he looks embarrassed, "Sorry, I wasn't planning on getting maudlin."

Elisabeth smoothly changes the subject, allowing them to move on to the exploits of their collective little ones, and the evening ends on a rather more cheerful note - but it's something that'll have to be dealt with sooner or later, and they all know full well that it's better that it's in their hands, rather than whoever is painting those slogans.

Assuming, of course, that they can talk Taylor into it.


	4. The Chemist and the Archaeologist

**A/N:** Thank you for the review, Leona - I'm glad you're enjoying things so far! I really need to go and read your latest chapter, too - bad fluffy thing! Having just completed chapter five (trying to keep one chapter ahead of myself), here's chapter four - which would've gone up at the weekend just gone but for a slight outbreak of Dvořák and UK's Mother's day...

Enjoy! As always, reviews are welcome - and what follows is not mine, other than the bits I thought up myself, like.

* * *

Chapter Four

 _The Chemist and the Archaeologist_

Pete is looking distinctly pleased with himself - perhaps even slightly smug, "The coppices are really coming into their own, Max; we're almost at the point where they're fully self sustaining."

For a man normally almost gratuitously unwilling to take himself - or anything - seriously, his jubilation seems remarkably restrained. It's taken a long time, and a lot of work, to get to the point he's at, and there were many occasions when they both found themselves wondering if they'd ever get the forestry project off the ground at all.

"That's brilliant news, Pete." Yseult hugs him warmly, I suspect that John'll be really keen to talk to you about how he can power that steam engine he's been harping on about for the last three months. She pauses, and looks at him more closely, "What is it? Is something up between you and Louis?"

"God, no." He shakes his head, vigorously, "Peas in a pod, darling. It's something else - I can't put my finger on it, but there's a lot of rumours on the fly. Normally, I wouldn't give it a nanosecond of my time; but I'm an expert on atmospheres, and this one's getting into 'cut with a chainsaw' territory."

Yseult frowns. She knows that Pete is far more perceptive to a collective mood of a crowd than she is: he's had long practice at it, having been obliged to conceal his sexuality in an increasingly intolerant world. While that danger has gone now, his skill remains. If he thinks that something's 'off', then there's a strong chance that it is.

He doesn't seem to be aware of the graffiti outbreak - but nothing stays a secret in Terra Nova for long, so even if he isn't, it won't be long before he finds out, "Keep your ear to the ground, Pete," she says, "If there's something going on, then the sooner we know about it, the sooner we can find out what it is and sort it out."

* * *

Malcolm reads over his project outline for the tenth time, and nods. That seems to cover everything that he can think of - short of the formation of a world-destroying black hole, but he's never been a credulous individual and doesn't buy into the endless scaremongering that emerged with the news of the discovery of the portal.

He lacks the historical knowledge to identify the figurehead itself, and isn't entirely sure that such a feat is even possible, though Yseult is cautiously optimistic that it can be done. As he's already said more than once, however, if the figurehead isn't from the same reality as the colonists, then they are thoroughly stuck on the discovery launchpad.

With the arrival of the harvest, however, matters have perked up again, so he suspects that he won't be able to really get started on the investigation until after they've brought everything in and evaluated the results of the growing season. It's frustrating, but juggling priorities is part of the job, so if it has to wait, it'll have to wait.

Closing the file down, he turns back to his other work, but his mind isn't really on it. While he hasn't seen it himself - simply because he spends so little time in the Command Centre, Jim's claim that he heard the Commander having a full conversation with absolutely no one at all is worrying. Much as he likes to gripe that there isn't enough proper representation in the Colony, the news that Taylor might be starting to lose at least some grasp of his faculties is deeply unnerving. No one lives forever, of course, but the fact that they haven't got any alternative to the current system of governance means that the void his loss would create would be a nightmare to fill without blasting the entire place apart.

 _Stop brooding, you idiot. When has that ever been helpful?_

Cross with himself, he turns back to his work. Chris has submitted his outline planting plans for the new season - with peas - and that requires his approval even if he hasn't got a clue how all the crop rotations and placements work.

* * *

Today's coffee blend is - thank God - based on the original recipe that Geoff the engineer created before his sad loss in a flash flood only a year ago. Sipping at it, Jim reviews his notes of a ridiculous argument between two normally harmonious neighbours over - of all things - a slightly out of tune air conditioner and shakes his head. It might have been three years ago that they found themselves fighting for their homes, but how quickly people forget that there are more important things than an annoying buzz that the repair teams haven't had the chance to get to yet.

"Better that than painting nonsense on walls, Shannon." Mira advises, seating herself opposite with a coffee of her own, "Besides, it's satisfying to watch them all go quiet when they see me coming."

He snorts - there's no denying it: she is the most efficient argument defuser he's ever met. Much as he relishes the simplicity of patrolling a community that generally gets on well, he's utterly hopeless at dealing with people who are angry and articulate - particularly if they've got a better idea of what they're talking about than he does. There's a lot that he _does_ know, but his sphere of human experience seems to revolve around crime and criminal activity, and that has a straightforward punch that he can counter without difficulty.

"Still nothing on whoever's putting up that graffiti." Mira continues, looking rather cross that she has so far failed to run that particular stream to its source, "There're rumours, but nothing solid. It's almost as though whoever's doing it's got some sort of paranoia problem and they think they'll be carted off for re-education or something."

Jim looks up, surprised, "Seriously? That's nuts - where the hell would we put a re-education camp?"

"At which point did I use the word 'rational', Shannon? I'd guess they think it's one of the outposts."

"Yeah, right. Alongside genetic stuff and chemicals. Sounds like huge fun."

"Maybe so - but if this carries on, then sooner or later it'll get to the point where they'll decide they're ready to do whatever it is they want to do, and we'll be fighting a rearguard action to stop this place from going to hell."

Jim swallows his mouthful of coffee with an almost visible gulp. That - and Taylor having conversations with empty rooms? That's a combination that they definitely _don't_ need.

"I'll keep trying." Mira's expression is resolute with an almost bloodyminded determination to work out what the hell is going on, "I'd rather not have this hanging over our heads at solstice."

* * *

Busy with statistics and budget plans, Malcolm is becoming ever more hopeful of a distraction. Any distraction. Much as he likes being Chief Science Officer - for the kudos of the title as much as anything else - there are certain aspects of the post that are less than fun. Particularly this.

His plex alerts him to a message and he notes that Taylor has approved his project outline with satisfaction. The Commander is smart, skilled and. capable - but God, he doesn't get science; and as he knows so little about where the project is likely to lead, Malcolm isn't at all keen to have to deal with a large number of questions. He smiles to himself, given how much detail he put in the outline, chances are that Taylor was too blinded by science to want to ask any.

Then his comm unit pings, and he winces slightly, _spoke too soon…_

" _Malcolm? It's Elisabeth - could you come over to the infirmary? It's Max._ "

At once, he tenses: his fears going into overdrive. Abandoning the call, he drops the comm unit and flees from the labs.

* * *

Yseult winces, "Ouch!"

"Sorry." Elisabeth looks sympathetic as she looks over the results above the bio-bed, "It's a clean break, Max - you've been very lucky."

"I need to call someone to pick up Erin…"

"It's okay, I've called Maddy - she offered before I got a chance to ask. Mark'll look after Elisabeth Rose while she babysits."

They look up as Malcolm skids to a halt alongside Elisabeth, "What's happened? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Yseult looks rather embarrassed, "I fell off a chair."

"A _chair_?" he looks nonplussed.

"I was standing on it at the time." She admits, "I was trying to catch a gecko on the office ceiling so I could release it outside."

"She landed awkwardly, Malcolm," Elisabeth adds, "so she's managed a very effective fracture of her left ankle."

"Oh, thank God…" Malcolm looks astonishingly shaken for such a trivial incident, until she remembers that, the last time he had been brought here to see Yseult as a patient, she had just been resuscitated after drowning in the river, and he had thought that she'd died. It certainly explains why he abandoned her call so abruptly.

"I'm sorry, Malcolm," Yseult reaches out to take his hand, "I was being lazy. I know I should've got a capture-box, but it was sleepy, so I thought I could just reach up with a small tub. It woke up, and bolted - and I lost my balance."

"She'll be fine," Elisabeth adds again, "I'll splint it, and you can be out of here tonight. She hasn't hit her head; and, apart from a spectacular collection of bruises to come, it's the only injury that's going to last more than a few weeks. I'll give you some painkillers, Max, and I'll ask one of the nurses to fit the splint and sort you some crutches. I'm afraid the solutions for broken bones are still pretty low-tech."

"Given that I'm pretty low-tech, Elisabeth, I can live with that." Yseult smiles, though her eyes are brimming as the shock of the fall starts to set in and her adrenaline levels start to drop at the same time. Smiling to herself sympathetically, Elisabeth retreats as Yseult huddles against her husband and weeps.

By the time they emerge, night has fallen, and Maddy has contacted them to say that Erin's sleeping like a log, and there's a pumpkin and beancurd salad in the fridge. They move slowly, as Yseult has to get used to the crutches that serve as a substitute for her injured leg, "I'm sorry about this." She says, again, "And the blubbering."

He smiles at her, "God, I've lost count of the number of times I've come close to it; the only reason that I've never been in your position is because I was luckier than you. In my case, I think it was arrogance rather than anything else."

She chuckles; she's never been blind to his faults - and she knows full well that he has to fight quite regularly against something of an embarrassing superiority complex when it comes to his intellect and sheer degree of knowledge. That he's become much more self-aware helps with that, and even he is capable of laughing at himself these days.

"How long are you signed off for?" he asks, as he was talking to the nurse about additional medication when Elisabeth discussed that part.

"Six weeks." She sighs, "And I'd only just gone back, too. So I'm afraid I won't be up to much for cooking over Solstice."

"Don't ask me to do it." Malcolm laughs, "I'd kill us all."

"If Pete hasn't issued an invitation to go to his for dinner by the end of tomorrow, then I'll have to claim that I don't know him in the slightest."

"That's a better prospect than me. Louis is a hell of a cook. I'm just hell at cooking."

* * *

"Don't be ridiculous, Max." Pete is very firm, "This is Erin's first Solstice where she's really getting to know what's going on - and she should spend it at home with Mummy and Daddy and get spoiled rotten - she was far too young to figure out the last one. Louis is already planning what he's going to present to you to have at your own dinner table."

"Are you sure?" Yseult looks both surprised, and rather pleased. Much as she enjoys spending time with Pete and Louis, she has to admit to feeling rather disappointed that her second Solstice with her family would be spent at someone else's house.

"Of course I'm sure, darling. You can come over to ours the night before - but only if you give Louis your recipe for that German stew of yours. The latest batch of gallusaur sausage is bloody brilliant, so it's begging to go in a pot with cabbage and those weird things that are nearly potatoes."

"Fair enough. I'll ask Malcolm to pick up some of Boylan's beer to go with it - it's worked incredibly well, so he's decided to stick with that recipe and call it _Kreidebier_. I was joking at the time - but why not?"

She smiles as he departs with a cheery wave, and turns back to hobble to the couch, where Malcolm is sitting back, attempting to read a report while Erin is crashed out on his chest.

"Can I get you anything?" she asks, as he looks up at her with a smile.

"Shouldn't I be saying that to you?"

"Perhaps, but you look so sweet there - fumbling with a plex while your daughter dribbles all over your shirt."

Once, he might have pulled a disgusted face and attempt to extricate himself from the source of moisture - but now he shrugs, "It can go in the wash tonight. I get the feeling I'm going to end up covered with a lot worse before Erin's out of single figures. I'm okay - but if you want anything, you can spend a bit of time accumulating a damp patch of your own while I put the kettle on. She's completely zonked, so I don't think she'd notice if I moved her."

Being a cook of such disastrous proportions that no amount of cooking lessons have dented his incompetence, Malcolm has turned to the assistance of those vendors at the marketplace who create the Cretaceous equivalent of ready-meals in order to feed his family. Tonight it's a hearty soup of root vegetables and xiph, which requires no more skill from him than to switch on a hotplate; and he is as grateful as Yseult that Pete and Louis have found a means for them to spend their first 'proper' Solstice with their daughter at home together.

* * *

Elsewhere, Jim is sitting on his couch as well, though his thoughtful expression betrays that he's thinking about that strange episode with Taylor again. Elisabeth has regained her ability to read his expressions and moods in the years since their reunion in the Cretaceous, and she is terrifyingly good at working out what's going on in his head.

He hasn't discovered Taylor having any more solo conversations; but nonetheless, he is already starting to approach the doors of the Command Centre with a vague sense of trepidation, in case he does. It's stupid - with the distance of time since it happened, he's beginning to doubt himself, and his memory of the event. Perhaps _he_ was the one imagining things…

"The more you think about it, Jim, the more you're going to doubt yourself." She says, after a while. Hell - she _must_ be telepathic…

"I get that. It's just - it's so _not_ like Taylor that I'm having trouble believing what I heard. Maybe I _did_ misread what was going on. He could've put the comm unit in his pocket before I came in."

"There's no way to know." She smiles at him, her arms encircling his neck, "If it doesn't happen again, then we can assume it's a one-off, and stop worrying about it. If it _does_ happen again, I'll see if I can come up with a pretext to give him another medical. He's not going to know which tests I'm running on the scanners - I could run some neurological scans."

"To find what?" Jim looks nervous; 'neurological' is a can of worms he most certainly doesn't want to open.

"To find that there's nothing physical and it's just stress - or something like that." She assures him, "It really could be anything at all - and it's probably completely innocuous. There's nothing much we can do about it now, though - so I suggest a hot drink and an early night."

"That sounds good to me." He grins back.

* * *

As is always the case, the celebration of Solstice starts quietly, with folks in their homes sharing a few gifts, enjoying time together and hovering around the kitchen as their dinners are cooking. Even though the festival is now secular, somethings never change. Now that she's getting older, Zoe is delighted with the large array of classic novels that have mysteriously appeared on her plex overnight, and equally pleased with a magnificently multicoloured scarf woven from a heavier grade cotton. Another source of pleasure for her is the knowledge that Maddy and Mark will be joining them for dinner. Elisabeth Rose is still a little young to be much of a conversationalist, but Zoe's gift for storytelling extends to most ages, and Maddy certainly appreciates her sister's efforts to entertain her niece while she helps Mom in the kitchen. Such is the way of things - but Mark is only capable of cooking if a grill is involved, and Jim's capabilities go as far as vegetable peeling - and no further.

By the afternoon, however, people are emerging in search of other forms of entertainment, and the general partying transfers, as it always does, to Boylan's. A few patrons have been there most of the day, not that they have been given a licence to drink themselves to oblivion; but that is more thanks to the limited supplies of intoxicants than any sense of social responsibility. Boylan may have switched to artisan brewing, but he's not _that_ reformed.

Joining the general throng, Jim watches as Elisabeth mingles with her friends, until his eye is caught by Taylor - standing upon his balcony with his habitual, patrician air. In spite of his conversation with his wife last night, he still finds himself scrutinising the Commander's every move, wondering if he's going to start talking to empty air again. Cross with himself, he shakes his head and turns to join Elisabeth, who has found Yseult and is already having to be dissuaded from examining her ankle, "Come on, Elisabeth, you're off duty."

"Sorry," she laughs, "Habit, I'm afraid. Did you cook today, Malcolm?"

"I think we'd be in the infirmary if I had." He reminds her, "Louis brought us a stuffed saddle of gallusaur and a tray of roots, and I just set the temperature and timer. I take no responsibility whatsoever for what came out of the oven."

Someone, somewhere has started a raucous chorus of _We Wish you a Merry Christmas_ , and everyone joins in the demand for that strange substance called 'figgy pudding' that no one really recognises. Once people have run out of verses, the small folk band strikes up, and soon people are dancing. Well, most people.

"I think," Malcolm declares, his arm about Yseult's shoulders, "That this is the one occasion where you'd dance worse than me."

She smiles as she snuggles against him, "Come on - you're not that bad."

"But almost."

"Yes - I'd go with that."

"You're not supposed to agree with me, Max."

* * *

Skye's expression is slightly uncomfortable as she approaches Jim, who is sitting to one side as Elisabeth has been borrowed for a raucous dance, "Can I talk to you?"

He looks up at her, intrigued, "Sure - what's up?"

She attempts to speak, pauses, then tries again, "I'm not sure if I'm imagining things; but, when the Commander came to our house for dinner today, he was…odd."

"Odd?" He's not sure whether to be relieved that she's not having problems with Josh, or concerned that she seems to have noticed the same thing as he has, "In what way?"

"Distracted, I guess." She says, as though trying to explain it to herself as much as to him, "And it was like he was talking to more than must Mom and me. Like there was someone else in the room with us."

Jim is silent for a moment; that rings too closely to what he overheard in the Command Centre - the conversation with empty air. Hell, is he doing it in company as well, now?

"I didn't want to ask him about it," Skye continues, "but I didn't know what to do, so I thought I'd come to you - you're his second in command now, so who better? And I know you won't spread it round the colony."

Too right, he won't.

"Did he say anything specific?" He asks, "Like he was speaking directly to this other person?"

She shakes her head, "I don't think so - but it really felt like he wasn't talking to just us. I just can't figure out if I was imagining it or not."

"You know him better than any of us, Skye." Jim admits, "Did it feel like you were imagining it?"

Skye turns to look at him directly, and shakes her head, "No. It didn't."

* * *

Elisabeth's expression is a lot less reassured this morning, "And she's sure that she didn't imagine it?"

"Very."

"That doesn't sound good," she sighs, "Skye's one of the least credulous people in the Colony - if she thinks she saw something, then it's almost certain that she did. I'm not sure that it's enough to warrant a full medical, though: it could just be that his emotions are at a low ebb. He might have treated Commemoration differently this year, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the feelings have gone away or changed. It might be that they're expressing themselves this way, instead."

"Do we talk to him?"

"I don't know." She admits, "You know how private the Commander is - and he's still enough of a soldier to think that showing emotions is weak: even to us. Besides, we still don't really know what's going on. There are no indications that he's letting things slip in terms of his leadership - and without that, what can we do? Being wistful over what they've lost during the celebration of a festival isn't sufficient grounds to relieve someone of their command."

"I guess I'll just keep watching, then."

"I think that's all that you can do." She agrees, kissing him on the nose.

* * *

Over the next week or so, Jim finds himself in the awkward position of looking out for odd things with Taylor - without _looking_ like he's looking out for odd things with Taylor. Not only is that difficult in case Taylor spots him doing it, but Mira's hardly going to miss it, either. While he has no doubts over her discretion, there are enough people in on the rather worrying secret as it is. So far, he's seen nothing out of the ordinary, and again he's wondering if it's all in his imagination, but the constant sense of being on tenterhooks is very wearing, not to mention the ongoing failure to find out who their political graffiti artist might be.

Mira has more or less taken it upon herself to keep tabs on that - having changed her morning run route to take in sites that are more likely to have subversive sentiments in red paint awaiting her attention - but there are no rumours, not even those undercurrents that precede rumours, and thus she continues to draw a blank. Perhaps the writer had a good Solstice and has changed their outlook. Sitting over a coffee in Boylan's, he peruses his plan for the day: mostly patrolling, though someone is reporting that they are hearing a 'prowler' outside again. Given that that very same person has made that claim on a more-or-less quarterly basis for as long as he's been doing this job, Jim is quite convinced that it's just wildlife. Unfortunately, he can't prove it because the complainant won't let him install a camera to find out if it is. Hard to believe he once used to bust down doors for a living.

"Anything?" He asks, as Mira crosses to sit at the table opposite him, equally burdened with coffee.

She shakes her head, "Nothing. I'm not willing to believe that it's done, though. If someone's pissed enough to paint on walls, then they're not going to give up after only two phrases. Maybe they want to put something up without repeating themselves, and they haven't got a big enough vocabulary."

"I don't think our vandal's a pre-schooler, Mira."

"Be easier if it was." She looks at him, "Aren't you supposed to be in a senior staff meeting?"

Jim looks at his watch, "Shoot. I'll be back in an hour."

* * *

Taylor's eyes are narrowed as he reads carefully through Malcolm's report. Why he's doing it now, no one can fathom - as it's long and complex, and he's had it for three days. But then, with Solstice just ended, there's a lot of catching up to do, so perhaps he hasn't had time, "That's a lot of planting, Malcolm." He says, eventually.

"I know." Malcolm agrees, "Chris reckons it's likely to push the agriculture teams to the limit to get it all done in time - so we're hoping we can get some volunteers in to help them. We were thinking of approaching the school to see if it can be incorporated into the biology classes - it's helpful for the younger members of the colony to understand what goes into putting food on their plates. If there are any takers in the barracks, that wouldn't go amiss either."

"I'll look into that."

"Now that that's done, I'm free to get started on the figurehead." He adds, "I'd hoped to get going on it before Solstice - but things ran away with me a bit."

"Good." Taylor nods, "Anything I should know, Doc?"

"Nothing at the moment, Commander." Elisabeth advises, checking her plex "No large scale emergencies, though I've had reports that the growers are finding ticks in the fields again - so they're all back in long trousers and gaiters to avoid bites. Other than that, just routine procedures and general ongoing maintenance."

"Sounds good. Max?"

"Same for me, really. Pete's looking after things for me at the moment - but Malcolm's given me a lift over to the compound a few times to touch base. We've cracked spinning really fine threads, and Ninette and John are optimistic that his latest adjustment to one of the looms is going to give us a weave fine enough to use for medical gauze - so I'll keep you posted on that."

"Shannon?" Taylor turns to Jim, who is prepared for it, given his late arrival. Normally he reports first.

"All quiet, Taylor." He agrees, "Our painter's not been active recently, and there's no sign that anyone's agitating for anything at the moment. I'm still trying to persuade the Mayer household that their prowler is just a lizard or something, but until they let me put up a camera, we can't say for sure. I've got the new security rosters from Guzman, and I'll post them to your plex this afternoon."

"Anything else?" he asks. Generally the 'Any other Business' part of a meeting is the most interesting, as no one's ready for it - but today it looks like the cupboard's bare, so he dismisses the senior team to return to their work.

"What do you think?" Jim asks Elisabeth as they descend the stairs back to the marketplace.

"Nothing that I could see." She observes, "He seems the same as always to me."

"That's what I was thinking. Maybe we're reading too much into it. Or maybe _I_ am."

"Possibly. Let's just keep an eye out and see what happens - it may be that it was just down to how busy it gets around Solstice."

Jim nods in agreement. Best to just let it go for now and just keep watching.

* * *

Malcolm's results are uploading to his plex, and his expression as he waits for the upload to complete is one of impatience. So far, he's identified that the figurehead is indeed a species of oak - though he hasn't undertaken a DNA sample yet to narrow down which one - but he wants to check for that radioactive signature. Without it, he can't carry out any carbon dating, as he doesn't want whatever has happened to the wood on the way through the portal to contaminate the calculations. Thanks to the assumption that degrees of Carbon 14 in the atmosphere were constant - when in fact they weren't - calculations tend to be wayward at the best of times, and he doesn't want to skew his results even more.

"D'you think that the signature will be able to determine which reality it came from?" Bram asks, intrigued.

"I think I was being overly optimistic with that," he admits, "It'll certainly show it came through a portal - but if it's a natural portal, and the one we used _wasn't_ , I'm not sure how that will help us - though it's useful to know if there's a difference, as that might identify how it is that the portal forms naturally. It may be that we hijacked it when we first established the portal - though the distances involved suggest otherwise. If we can identify _how_ it forms, then that could answer a lot more questions over whether there are more of them - so that's a bonus on top of identifying whether it links to the same reality that our artificial one did."

He turns back to his results, "Yes - there are indications of Theta radiation - though how that happened is anyone's guess, it's only ever been produced artificially; there must be a natural source of it somewhere."

Bram squints over his shoulder, "It might be that signature there; it's something I've never seen before."

"That's what I was thinking," Malcolm agrees, "Hell, this is going to be a nightmare to explain to Taylor. It looks like there's an element involved that doesn't exist in the future - it's completely decayed into isotopes of other elements. But that also means that the wormhole has a limited lifespan. Sooner or later, the fuel's going to run out for it."

"So it's worth carrying on with this, then?"

"Definitely."

* * *

Taylor frowns, "Nope - that's too technical, Malcolm."

Suppressing a sigh, as he knows that he's asking a lot of the Commander to understand what he's trying to say, Malcolm tries again, "When the first wormhole was opened in our future, it was found that the main cause of it was a type of subatomic particle that had never been seen before. Radiation as we know it comes from unstable elements that throw particles out of their nuclei. It's the nature of all things to try to stabilise, and that's what a radioactive atom's trying to do. It might have too many protons or neutrons in its nucleus - and it kicks them out to try and make itself stable. Bundles of protons and neutrons form what's known as an alpha particle, while an electron is a beta particle. Theta radiation is incredibly rare because it seems to have no natural source; it's only been possible to create theta particles artificially. It's the theta radiation that fuels the wormholes."

"So, what you're trying to say is that there's something in the Badlands that creates this radioactivity naturally?"

"Yes." Malcolm nods, relieved that he might finally have said something that makes sense to Taylor, "From what we've got in terms of evidence, it's safe to assume that all wormholes transport from the future to the past - in our case, we created something that pushed, as we opened it at our end; but if this figurehead is anything to go by, then the normal routine is that they pull from the future into the past."

"Do we know what's making this stuff?"

"Not at the moment, no. Whatever it is, it doesn't exist naturally in the future, which suggests that it doesn't originate on earth, as it's completely decayed into isotopes of elements that we would expect to see, and there's nothing left of it. That equally suggests that, eventually, the wormhole will cease to exist - unless there are other sources elsewhere."

"But how did it get here?"

"Given that it's not been found at any time, I don't think there's any source within the core of the planet - so it's most likely to have come from space."

"Not aliens…" Taylor groans, "Please don't say it's aliens."

"I was going to say a meteorite."

"Thank God for that."

"I'm going to have to do a lot of speculative calculations to see if I can work out a half-life for this element." He continues, "As we've never seen a natural source for theta radiation before, it'll be guesswork, but it might give me some hints about whether the natural wormhole is a regular occurrence, and possibly even a chance of predicting when it opens. Finding it shouldn't be too hard - we have its signature and a spectroscopic reading to work from. But at the moment, I'm more interested in seeing if we can actually identify the ship. I've got Bram looking for specimens deeper in the wood that might have come through from the Holocene with the figurehead, as familiar species should indicate that it's from the same reality as ours."

"And if it is?"

"That's where Max comes in."

* * *

Bram is not used to visiting his boss at home, but Malcolm has invited him to join them for dinner, as he feels they've reached the point where they need to turn from science to archaeology, and it's time to see if they can confirm that the figurehead came from their reality. It's a bit of a long shot, as there's no guarantee that evolution has diverged that much between two realities; but nothing ventured, nothing gained, and his identifications look very promising.

The first thing about Malcolm's assistant that Yseult notices is his height - nearing six feet - and his astonishingly Nordic features, startlingly blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. He's actually from Utah, but anyone who sees him assumes he's from Scandinavia: right up to the point at which he opens his mouth and proves conclusively that he's not.

Her next impression is that he is clearly the bearer of interesting news, and he takes his seat at their table with a most pleased expression as Malcolm pours out three glasses of some of Julia's best elderflower wine. Now that her ankle is stabilising, she's more able to move about and has baked a side of xiph, accompanied by a good, hearty salad.

"This is fantastic." Bram says, as they eat, "I wish I could cook like this."

"So do I." Malcolm admits, "The best that I can manage is toast."

As they eat, the two scientists fill Yseult in on progress so far. It's not as hard for her to take in as it was for Taylor, as she's studied at least some science as part of her degree; and she is very intrigued at the prospect of an element that exists in their present, but not in their future, "Is there any way to identify it?"

"Not easily - at least, not here." Malcolm muses, "We'd need to go and find it - which, given the size of the Badlands is so far into 'needle in haystack' territory that I'd rather leave that until we've exhausted all other avenues of investigation."

He doesn't say so, but she knows there's another reason why he wouldn't want to head out into the Badlands - not after what happened to him the last time he was there for more than a day or so. Bram probably knows most of it, too; but they don't delve any further - there's far too much else to think about first.

"I've found some interesting remains in the figurehead, Malcolm," Bram continues, as he sets his cutlery down on his now empty plate, "Several species of larva that we'd expect to see in an oak tree - and, more particularly, species that are quite rare and limited in range."

They both stare at him, surprised.

" _Malachius aeneus -_ the Scarlet Malachite beetle. It was probably a lot more widespread about the time that the figurehead was made - but it was becoming increasingly rare by the 2000s, and we lost it completely in the 2100s. It was particularly recorded in England; but - you'll love this, Max - most commonly in the New Forest."

"Seriously?" She looks very surprised, and pleased.

"Is that good?" Malcolm asks.

"It's very interesting," Yseult says, "The New Forest was a major source of oak for the British navy, and for shipbuilding in general. If we can narrow down the cultivar of the oak itself, then it makes it easier to confirm the location where it grew, and when it was felled."

"You could find that out?"

"I think so. Dendrochronology gives you an age of the tree - but it can't tell you when it was felled. What we can do instead, however, is compare the rings on the cores we drill out with records of similar trees whose felling date we _do_ know. It's a lot less whizz-bang than using your spectrometers - but it's pretty reliable."

Malcolm smiles at her, "In that case, welcome to the team."


	5. An Unexpected Conversation

**A/N:** Thank you for your review, Leona - glad you're enjoying it! Now that the threat from the future's gone, human nature can take over as a source of jeopardy - and so it does!

On we go - the work begins on the figurehead, and the instability continues...enjoy!

* * *

Chapter Five

 _An Unexpected Conversation_

Taylor is standing on his balcony, looking out across the marketplace with a contemplative air. Yet again, Jim watches from a quiet spot in the shade of a house and hopes that he'll see nothing untoward. He's not seen anything over the last week or so, and nor have any of his colleagues; but that doesn't mean anything. God alone knows whether Taylor carries on these weird conversations in his house. Besides, even Skye's noticed something's going on. The real frustration is that they can't do anything to confirm it one way or the other. What the hell is going on with their commander?

Sighing to himself, he steps back out of sight, before moving some way back and about-turning to give the impression as he emerges that he's just passing through on his way to Boylan's. Forcing himself to ignore the watcher on the Balcony, he heads inside and finds Mira sitting with her plex in front of her, and a rather irked expression on her face, "There's another one."

For a moment Jim is pushed to recall what she means, preoccupied with his concerns about the Commander, but then the penny drops, "Where?"

"Not the same place - I think our scrawler might think we've put cameras up."

"Ah. Paranoid."

"And you're surprised?" She smiles, thinly, handing him the plex.

"At least they've spelled 'Democracy' right, this time," he observes, viewing another exhortation for the right to vote expressed in red paint, "Any samples for CSI Wallace?"

She taps a small pot nearby, "Looks like it's the same paint again. We'll never track it down - chances are that someone took a pot of the stuff and just keeps using it." She looks frustrated, "And before you ask, no, there still aren't any rumours."

Jim raises his eyebrows. A community as small as this - and no one's picked up on any discontent over how they're governed? It makes no sense at all. The only real suggestion he can think of is that it must be a 'lone wolf'; either that or whoever's involved is keeping their activity tighter than a frog's ass. Given what they're asking for, it's going to come out sooner or later - he just hopes that it won't do it in a monster blow-up that they're not ready for.

"I'll bring it up with Taylor again." He sighs, "It's not gonna go away, is it?"

"Nope." She says, perusing the image again. Then she looks up, "The only way you're going to pre-empt something is to open lines of communication. I know Taylor does his surgeries, but who's going to open up to him about something like this? He's the ultimate Head Honcho: no one's going to want to bleat about representation on a council to a military commander. There're plenty of people here who remember the number of coups that happened around the world before they got a free ride through Hope Plaza."

"Taylor's not like that." Jim protests.

"And you're sure about that?" Mira counters, "Have you ever raised the possibility of a Colonists' Council? If you want to see how military regimes react to demands for democracy - go read a history book. No matter how much of a father figure he is, Taylor's still military, and he's never been disputed by anyone inside the Colony, has he?"

He looks at her, a little helplessly. He simply doesn't think like a politician, and he's never prepared to counter someone who does. Sure Malcolm bleats on about it a lot - but he's never overtly challenged the order of things, and is never likely to, either - given that no one else has protested until the painting started, Jim hasn't even given it a thought before.

"Look," Mira says, "You know that Taylor's the right man for the job, and so do I. It's a tough burden to carry, and he's done it damned well - even I can't dispute that - but sooner or later we have to be ready for a succession, and I'd rather we did it _before_ we need it. No regime change ever works on the fly."

"I know, I know." He sighs, "Maybe this'll persuade him that we need to open up some channels of communication. _Someone's_ unhappy with the way things are - and you're right. Better to do this ourselves rather than have it forced on us."

He pauses as Mira's plex pings to alert her to a message. She reads it, and looks rather surprised.

"What now?" Jim asks, "Another painting? War? Famine?"

"No. A dinner invitation."

* * *

Malcolm isn't very good at sulking: he just can't _quite_ pull off that air of mild injury, and instead looks petulant and childish. Consequently, he tends not to bother, but he's not at all comfortable with this evening's event. He can't be angry with Yseult: she didn't extend the invitation without asking him first - and he did agree to it.

"Think of it as a part of the project, Malcolm," Yseult suggests as she checks the mycoprotein and vegetable bake in the oven, "You need to know where the figurehead came from, and Mira's the one who fetched it out of the Badlands. If nothing else, she can describe what it was like where she found it, and that might help you work out if that's where the portal opens, and possibly even how."

"She isn't a scientist, Max…" he begins.

"No, she isn't - but she's highly observant and incredibly astute. If nothing else she'll have a set of coordinates to work from - she was sent out to look for that figurehead, and she found it. Given how she and her colleagues survived out in the desert as effectively as they did even after things began to go wrong for the other soldiers, she must have a real eye for terrain. We'd be fools to dismiss her input." She looks across to him, and his expression says more than words ever could. It's not so much Mira that's the problem: it's what she represents to him - the occupation, the cruelty of the sixers who tortured him. Even his miserable ordeal out in the desert - though she was not responsible for that, and helped to rescue him from it.

"Going out there and blowing up the encampment only went so far, didn't it?" she asks, gently, crossing to him and encircling his waist with her arms.

"I'm sorry." He says, after a while, "I know it's something I shouldn't be thinking about anymore. It's over - I survived, and I've had so much life given back to me since. But…"

"It's still horrible." She finishes, "Think of it like this: the sooner we do this, the sooner you'll have the information she can share, and we can move on with the investigation of the figurehead. You won't have to think about it anymore - and we'll have a starting point for working out how there's a portal in the Badlands."

"No," He says, firmly, "The sooner we do this, the sooner I stop treating Mira like an unexploded bomb. I've got to live with this - and I need to accept that things are as they are. It's not fair on her, and it's not fair on you. She's a victim too - I only have to look at Erin to know it."

"But if you struggle with it, I'll still give you a free pass." Yseult adds, "There's a good woman locked up in that stiff exterior, Malcolm - and she's starting to emerge. I think, once everyone gets past what happened, they'll see it too."

"And that's why I love you so much." He adds, kissing her.

* * *

Mira's expression is rather wary as Yseult invites her into the house, but given that Malcolm is armed with a bottle of wine rather than a weapon suggests that things are not going to get off to as bad a start as she had feared. Sure, he looks a little uncomfortable, but there's no sense of active hostility. For a woman as good at reading people as Mira, and a man as bad at hiding his feelings as Malcolm, it's easy to see it.

Her expression become altogether more intrigued as they sit down to eat, and Yseult outlines the project they're working on, "I'd assumed it had been transported to Hope Plaza, and Shannon had vaporised it." She admits.

"It was due to go through on the second shipment," Malcolm explains, "the one that was setting up just before I blew the terminus."

"Ah." Mira pauses, and frowns, "I'm not sure what you think I can tell you about it. I was just sent out to find it."

"That's the relevant thing," he continues, "you _found_ it. What I'm looking to know is what you recall about the terrain - what was there, what _wasn't_ there - anything that you can think of which might give me clues over how it is that a portal opens there. Even an idea of where it actually is would be helpful."

She nods, "It wasn't anywhere near the encampment - it must've been at least another two days' drive if not more. Lucas wouldn't let them go too close - but I think that was more so he could keep the information to himself than for any other reason. Weaver didn't give us any warnings about the area."

"He didn't?" Malcolm looks startled, "But the amount of radiation needed to fuel a portal is massive - he could've poisoned the lot of you!"

Mira shrugs, and does not seem shocked at all, "That's the kind of guy he was. People are expendable in the pursuit of profit." She pauses again, "The coordinates he gave me weren't that good - it was based on triangulation of long-distance sensor readings. I was never told it directly, but I heard rumours of UAVs in the early days - before they thought about setting up the Colony."

Malcolm's eyes widen, "They carried out aerial surveys?"

Mira nods. Very little remains of the Colony's original sensor network - and they've never had the wherewithal to re-establish it; but this is startling news, "Don't forget that the people who started this up were in it for the long haul. They were prepared to put in huge amounts of investment because the returns were expected to be massive. What's millions of bucks to people who are anticipating billions in return? Setting up Terra Nova was always a cover for what they were really doing. It never occurred to them that the people they were sending into the past would actually fight back when the investors wanted to start raking in the profits. They never thought Taylor could pull it off - they assumed that the colony would fail, and they'd keep the deception going so that no one would realise what they were doing."

"Continually sending more and more people through to die." Yseult finishes, with a shudder.

"And they got themselves proved spectacularly wrong." Mira adds.

"I wish we had their results." Malcolm says, wistfully, "They must've had huge amounts of detail of the terrain."

"They did." Mira agrees, "Lots of it - and over a huge area." She has an odd look on her face.

"What?" Yseult asks, "Do you have it?"

"Yes - and no." She sighs, "One of my team salvaged a huge pile of data from Hooper's records before we left him to his own devices. Trouble is, it's encrypted - and I've never had the chance to see what we got. It could be everything - but it might just be a heap of inventory from his supply dumps."

"Send me the files." Malcolm says, "If I can't get in, someone in my team should be able to find a way."

No one mentions it - for fear of breaking the spell - but, for the moment, the atmosphere seems to have become markedly less cold.

* * *

Bram is working through some results from his latest batch of substrate samples when Malcolm calls him over to the small room that once housed the scorpion, and asks him to shut the door.

"Is it about the project?" he asks, at once.

Malcolm nods, "Mira's described where she found the figurehead - and what the area was like."

"Anything useful?" Bram takes a seat at Malcolm's invitation.

"Possibly. No one else has ever been that far out into the Badlands before, but she's convinced that the figurehead wasn't located where it was originally found. There was nothing else there - it was just stuck in the middle of nowhere, which we both agree is very unlikely as to how it was original deposited. Based on what she's described, it's not as helpful as I'd have liked, but she did offer something else. She's got some data files."

Bram's eyes widen.

"The bugger is that they're encrypted. The coding isn't particularly sophisticated - it doesn't prevent copying of the files to new locations - so I've got one set on a data-card to keep as a master given that I'm not the world's greatest hacker. That's probably Tom Boylan, but I'm no more going to let him have a set than I'm going to dance with him - so this may take a bit of time."

"Any ideas as to how the figurehead moved?"

"Only that it didn't grow legs and walk." Malcolm grins, "I'm partly hoping that the files might give me a clue. I'd suggest that the figurehead was a one-off - but that then makes me wonder why the hell the Soldiers stayed up there for as long as they did - and why Lucas Taylor was so intent on opening a portal. There's a hell of a lot that doesn't make sense."

Bram thinks for a bit, "Given that we're assuming that our unknown source of radiation came from space, I'm thinking an impact."

"Me too. How long ago it was, whether it was direct hit or an air-burst detonation is impossible to say at this point. The only way to find out without actually going to look for it is a topographical survey. If the data-files contain something like that, then I'd say that we've had a visit from Father Christmas."

"How could anyone have done that?"

"Mira heard rumours that they'd sent through UAVs when they opened the first portal. How many came through, where they went and how the data was gathered is anyone's guess. Unless Lucas did it after he was banished from the colony." Malcolm muses, "Actually, I wouldn't put that past him. He figured out how to communicate with the future, so it's fair to say that he could've found a way. Long-range radio connections or something similar. If he had the right sort of instruments - he could've collected it without having to actually locate the devices themselves. It could explain how Mira was given co-ordinates to locate the figurehead." He stops, and sighs, "And I'm getting ahead of myself. Until I've cracked the files, I have no idea what we've got."

Bram nods, "I'll leave you to it, then."

* * *

Charlotte Rampton is a tall, muscular woman from Fort William with broad shoulders that speak of many years working with axes, adzes, hand-drills and very large beams of wood. Preferring the name 'Charlie' she was the last of the experimenters to be selected for the Sustainable Industries department, but her knowledge of timber frames and associated medieval building techniques is unsurpassed. With a multitude of trees out there, she's spent a lot of time working out how to build new houses if they run out of metal sheeting.

"What do you know so far?" she asks, her accent rich with the tones of the Highlands, unlike Malcolm, who abandoned his Central Scottish accent in his teens.

"We know that it's likely to be New Forest Oak." Yseult explains, "Bram Fox identified a species of beetle that was particularly prevalent in the area - though if we can narrow down the actual cultivar, that might help confirm it."

"I'll get my bits. Are we cleared to take some cores?"

"Malcolm's coming over in an hour to take us to the storage shed where we're storing it. We're still keeping it under wraps in case this doesn't go anywhere. There's no point in setting hares running only to have to admit that there's nothing worth telling."

"I doubt that." Charlie smirks.

By the time Malcolm pulls up in his rover, Charlie has gathered a drill and a selection of boring tools to drill out the wood cores that she needs, while Yseult has spent some time examining available data held in the Eye on existing cores to compare with what they extract. In the hour that he's had with Mira's data files, he has made little progress, not wishing to risk any unexpected security features wiping the contents. While he has an isolated spare, he'd rather not have to go back to square one more times than he has to.

He finishes his update on his progress as they pull up outside the storage shed. Once inside, Charlie is as astounded as her colleagues had been at their first sight of the hidden figure within the transport crate.

"It's been made from two pieces," Charlie advises, as she examines it, "the figurehead herself is one piece, while the mount is another. I'll take cores from both - given that they're likely to be from the same source, that should help give us an idea of when the trees were alive, and when they were felled. It might even give us some idea of a likely location - depending on what we have on record from other samples. I'll pull out another one for Bram - the DNA further in won't be quite so wrecked."

"Great." Malcolm approves, "That saves me asking." He disappears outside for a moment, and returns with a small plastic box, "I'll put it in here to keep the contamination down. Have you got latex gloves?"

Everything organised, Malcolm and Yseult stand back to allow their wood expert to get on with it. It sounds horribly noisy, and looks dreadfully destructive - but they need to know, so they watch and wait as Charlie drills out one long core of wood from the side of the figurehead, which she sets on a piece of clear plastic, then another, which she sets into Malcolm's box and covers up. Then she does it all over again - this time with the mount.

"I should have an age for the trees by tomorrow, Max." She advises, as she wraps her set of cores, "Based on what we've worked out from a visual examination of the style of the figurehead, that narrows it down to somewhere around a century and a half-wide parameter to search for possible sample cores we can compare them with. I'd say you go from around 1650 to 1800 to be sure."

Yseult nods, "I'll see what I can find."

"This is fascinating." Malcolm observes, "I should try being utterly useless to the investigation more often."

* * *

"So, how long until we get results?" Taylor asks, as Yseult reports on their progress.

"Charlie's taken some photos of the cores, Commander," She advises, "so she can do some work on the images and bring out the contrast between the rings better. I've booked up some time in the labs so that we can process the images to count up the rings in total. I've been working on tracking down records from the Eye for cores from trees with known felling dates, so that we can make comparisons."

"How will that work?" Jim asks, intrigued.

"Rings form in response to atmospheric and environmental conditions, Jim." Malcolm explains, "They can tell you how old the tree was when it was felled - but not _when_. So you compare your cores with records of other cores - trees are almost as good a record of time as ice cores are. If you have cores from trees with a known felling date, between that and the age of the tree, you can go back and work out when your tree was felled. It's sometimes even possible to confirm where it grew - if you have the right conditions to create ring sequences that are specific to a particular region."

"You can tell all of _that_?"

"Not always." Yseult admits, "It depends on what we find with these cores, and what I can track down from the records held in the Eye."

"It sounds promising." Taylor says, "Keep on it."

"Will do, Commander. I've asked Pete to take charge of my compound while I concentrate on it."

"What's next?" Taylor looks across to Jim.

"More graffiti." He says, a little crossly, "Same as the first, but they've spelled 'democracy' right this time. Someone must've got hold of a dictionary."

"And?"

"Nothing new. Same batch of paint, same type of brush - all standard supplies. Whoever's doing it probably stole a can of paint and a brush. There's not a lot we can do until they run out of paint and go to get more."

"Which we can't prove because everyone's going in and out of the stores. Unless it's someone who isn't a member of the construction teams, then we can't do anything because they've all got legitimate reasons to go in there."

"Could we tag the paint?" Jim suggests.

"You haven't seen the inventory, have you?" Malcolm sighs, "Already considered it, checked how many tins we had - and it's just not going to happen. There's just too much paint. We've got enough to last us at least another ten years - that's _thousands_ of tins."

"It was a thought."

"The messages are always on walls out in the fields, though." Elisabeth muses, "Might it be someone in the Agri-department? The staff there know which areas are watched, and which aren't - more than anyone else would."

"Thats three hundred and twelve people." Jim advises, "If we start asking questions, word gets about and we're right back to frog's ass territory."

"I don't like it." Taylor grumbles, "If people aren't happy, then I need to know. No one's said a damn thing in my surgeries. I'll get someone on it. Mira keeps trying with her contacts, and let's see if we can find out more with a two-prong approach."

"Got it."

"Anything medical to worry about, Doc?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary, Commander," Elisabeth says, consulting her plex, "we have three pregnancies in progress, all doing well, and no one's reporting anything other than the usual slips, trips and sprains. I've got a surgery scheduled for this afternoon to pin a fractured femur - but other than that, the health of the colonists is good."

Taylor nods, "Good. Unless anyone's got anything else on their minds, I think that's it. Keep me apprised of progress on those cores, Max."

"Will do, Commander."

* * *

It's clear from his expression that Jim is still concerned about the anonymous painter - and the fact that he has absolutely no means to identify them, "I just wish they'd _say_ something." He grouches as he accompanies Elisabeth down the stairs from the Command Centre, "Hell, if they want the vote, why not ask? It's not like we're going to throw them out for it - even if Taylor says no, it gets the subject aired."

"You're forgetting, Jim," Elisabeth reminds him, "Taylor may come across as paternalistic - and most of the time he _is_ \- but he's still a soldier, and a fair proportion of the colonists are also soldiers. For civilians, that can be very intimidating - you were in Golad at the time, but I remember seeing news reports of military regimes committing the most appalling human rights abuses in some parts of the world. That we live under something akin to martial law here as well makes people nervous."

"Come on, Elisabeth - Taylor would never…"

"You know that. I know that - but how many people know him like we do? _Really_ know him?"

He sighs. She's got a point.

"All we can do is keep our collective ears to the ground." Elisabeth says, "If we ever do manage to find out who it is that's writing these slogans, then we can try and find out why they're doing it, and perhaps find a way of assuring them that their views matter, too."

* * *

Behind them, Malcolm and Yseult are talking cores again, until he reaches into his pocket for his comm unit and sighs. He's lost it. Again.

"I think I left it in the Command Centre," he says, with a disappointed air, "I'll see you tonight."

Smiling, Yseult stands on tip-toe to kiss him on the forehead, and heads off on her own. Cross with himself, Malcolm turns and re-ascends the staircase.

"I know. I can trust you do to it. If anyone can find who this person is, you can."

Bugger - Taylor's on a call with someone. Rather than interrupt, Malcolm stands alongside the closed door and waits.

"If I knew the answer to that question, I wouldn't be asking." Taylor's voice is amused, "Don't use a team - just make some discreet enquiries. They probably won't open up to you - but if you keep it below the radar, you never know."

Silence. Bemused, Malcolm strains to listen harder. There should be someone answering on their comm unit, surely?

"Hey - I'm not fool enough to trust the woman. I'm willing to bet a years rations that she's pretending she's got nothing - it wouldn't surprise me if it was her."

More silence.

"Okay, okay. I know. I'm too suspicious for my own good. You'll be calling me paranoid in a minute."

Who the hell is he talking to? He never speaks to Guzman like that. Even more confused now, Malcolm backs away from the door. He knows there's no one in there, because no one went in when they came out. But comm units aren't silent - why hasn't he heard the responses to Taylor's conversation? His nosiness overcoming his manners, Malcolm leans carefully forward, and puts his eye to a split between the slats of the door.

His features creased into a smile, Taylor laughs at an empty space in front of him, "Get out on patrol," He says, with that same air of amusement, as though chiding someone without too much seriousness, "report back to me when you've got something."

Startled, Malcolm steps back - fortunately without making a sound. Abandoning thoughts of his comm unit he makes his way down the steps as quietly as he can. Elisabeth needs to know about this.

* * *

"You're sure there was no one in the room?" Elisabeth asks, doubtfully.

"Positive. No one could've got in there when we were leaving - but he was having a full, meaningful conversation with someone that only he could see." Malcolm insists, "We knew that there was something going on - but I think this is the first time any of us have actually _seen_ it."

"That doesn't sound at all good."

"What could be causing it?"

Elisabeth shrugs, "Anything - it could be a pathogen of some sort, it could be something neurological. I the one thing I can't say anymore is that it's our imagination: because you witnessed it happening."

"Oh God - do you think it's something to do with that amnesia thing?" Malcolm looks suddenly nervous.

"If that's the case, why aren't you and I doing the same thing?" Elisabeth asks, at once, "I was infected at the same time that Taylor was - and no one's reported any symptoms like that with me. I'm surrounded by people all the time - believe me, if I was having conversations with no one, my staff would notice."

Malcolm sits back on a bench with a sigh, "He wasn't fooling about, Elisabeth - whoever he was talking to, he was doing it with all seriousness, as though he could actually see them in front of him. Besides, Taylor's hardly one for practical jokes, is he?"

"But if he was doing it after we'd gone," Elisabeth muses, "did it start to happen after we left, or was this imaginary person there all along, and he only spoke to them once he was on his own?"

Malcolm pauses to think it over, "I didn't see him looking around the room at anyone other than the four of us." He says, after a while, "But it's hard to say because I wasn't looking for it - there was no reason to."

"And now we won't be able to do anything else." She says, then frowns, "I think we need to get together and talk about this - I need to find some way to get the Commander back in here without him guessing why."

"That won't be easy." Malcolm smiles at her, "You've only just got him in for his medical. He's not going to be keen to submit to another one so quickly."

"Leave it with me." She says, her expression quite firm, "I'll see what I can do. Tell Max that you two are invited round to dinner tonight."

Malcolm turns the problem over in his mind as he heads back to the labs. Taylor has always seemed such a rock - the foundation upon which Terra Nova is built. His commitment, determination and will to make the colony succeed has almost been that very driving force that has caused it to do so. Could they have come this far without him? Somehow, he doesn't think it likely. Add that to the problem of someone quite stridently demanding democracy - but without offering any input as to how or why they should do so - and his mind wanders again to the problem of continuity. What if there _is_ something wrong with the Commander - and what if it's serious? They are completely unprepared for the day when he is no longer able to lead them - and there is no one to step into his place. Regardless of his own foibles, and his regular reminding people of his status, Malcolm is self-aware enough to know that he would be utterly hopeless. He is good at running his department, yes - but running the entire colony? God, no. Besides, that growing self-awareness has taught him that his regular pointing out that he is Chief Science Officer stemmed very much from a deep insecurity thanks to his relative youth to hold such a position - and a sense that no one was taking him seriously. Nowadays, however, he knows that they do - and he can't remember the last time he used his job title, even to introduce himself to someone.

Could Jim do it? Again, Malcolm considers and rejects the possibility. Jim is brilliant at what he does, and he is far from unintelligent - but he has no head for the complexities of leadership, particularly the sheer stupidity of people who have a bee in their bonnet and an axe to grind over it. Taylor's ability to handle such squabbles is legendary amongst those who have seen him do it; but Jim is neither politically astute enough, nor patient enough, to avoid knocking heads together. Yseult could probably do it, and so could Elisabeth - but he can't see either of them wanting to do it either. They're both far too busy with their own work.

Which leads him back again to the reality of collective rule. Sooner or later, they're going to need a council: and perhaps now's the time to broach the matter. It might as well come from him - after all, he's famous for whingeing about it - so it seems a sensible idea to raise at their next meeting.

He's still musing as he heads into his office, to find Chris waiting for him, "Oh, sorry Chris - have I forgotten a meeting again?"

His Field manager shakes his head, but looks both annoyed, and worried, "I thought I'd better come over - we could have a problem."

"What's wrong - is there an infestation of some sort?"

"That depends on what you mean by infestation." Chris holds out a piece of paper. Taking it, Malcolm sits down to read.

 _Comrades_

 _The time has come too demand freedom from the yolk of military oppression. We plant, we grow, we harvest - but we are not given the respect due to us as workers and human beings. While we slave in the feilds, the soldiers sit in there barracks and polish there guns - but do nothing for the benefit or wellfair of the colony._

 _I urge you to join with me too protest at this gross abuse of are hard labor. I plan to form a union to represent are interests against the faceless military who benefit from are work without giving anything in return. Together we can throw of the shakles of oppression, and take this community forward to a prosperus future._

 _Your Friend._

"Comrades?" Malcolm asks, his expression sceptical and amused at the same time, "Someone's been reading _Animal Farm_. Looks like they spell as well as the sheep would have done if they could get past the 'four legs good' bit."

"Part of me wants to stick it up on a wall with all the mistakes corrected and giving it marks out of ten - but I think that might just inflame the situation. I wouldn't be all that bothered - but we've got half the people in the barracks out in the fields helping with the planting right now. They're too busy being up to their eyes in seedlings to bother polishing anything - let alone their weapons."

"At least it's hand-written." Malcolm muses, "We've got samples of handwriting from everyone in the colony because of the paperwork they had to complete before they came through. Given that it's riddled with spelling errors, it's probably the person who's been daubing on the walls - and we might finally have an idea who they are."

"I'll be honest." Chris says, "Pretty much everyone in the Agri-teams is more literate than this, so I think it's not _that_ likely that they'll be inspired to overthrow the shackles of Taylorian oppression on the basis of this; but someone's discontented enough to try and stir the pot. I've got some ideas in mind as to who it might be - but it'll be interesting to see what comes out of a handwriting comparison. See if my guess is right."

"I'll take this through to Jim Shannon." Malcolm advises, "He'll welcome anything that can shed light on this person."

"That'd be good. I'm not in the mood for fighting off popular revolutions at the moment - not when we've got so much planting on."

"Too right." Malcolm laughs, "It's probably nothing. I'll drop this over to Jim later."

As Chris departs, Malcolm re-reads the letter, snorting with amusement at the use of the word 'yolk' instead of 'yoke'. Much as he is keen to see wider opportunities for people to share in the running of the Colony, he has his limits. Never mind - now that they have something written by hand - perhaps they can head this nonsense off at the pass. Folding the paper carefully, he sets it in a pocket, buttons it closed, and makes a mental note to hand it to Jim over dinner tonight.


	6. Revelations

**A/N:** Thank you for your review, Jemmz! I hope I can keep up the pace here!

Today's been a good day for writing, and I've got myself a couple of chapters in hand, so I thought I'd pop up another one. There's a bit of a shocker lurking in here...hopefully no one's seen it coming!

Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter Six

 _Revelations_

Elisabeth's cooking skills are not entirely peerless, but they're very close to it, and the opportunity to dine at the Shannons' household is not one to be missed. The fact that they have an ulterior motive is - essentially - immaterial, though the expressions on the faces of the diners is a strange combination of enjoyment and concern.

"I wish I could claim that I was imagining it," Malcolm says, setting his fork down to reach for a glass of blackberry wine, "but he was absolutely intent on that conversation, and there wasn't anyone in the room but him. He certainly wasn't speaking into a comm unit - it wasn't in his hand. If it was anywhere else, then why didn't I hear the other person?"

"Do we talk to him?" Yseult asks, worriedly, "Surely he knows he's doing it?"

Elisabeth shakes her head, "It's quite possible that he doesn't - but why it's happening, and how, I can't begin to speculate. It could be anything; without giving him another medical, I've got nothing to go on."

"Then you give him another medical." Jim says, brightly.

"We've been over this," She replies, "I have enough trouble persuading him to submit to the ones that he's _meant_ to have. Trying to get him in for another one is going to be a task akin to the ten labours of Hercules."

"Shouldn't that be 'Heracles'?" Malcolm asks.

"Pedantry later, Malcolm." Yseult says, smiling, "Taylor issues now."

"As long as we keep an eye on him, and he doesn't do anything that could compromise the safety of the colony, the best thing we can do for now is continue to watch him. I wish I could be more positive on what we do, but without any real evidence that there's something wrong with him what _do_ we do?"

Malcolm frowns, "Could it be an age thing?"

"What?" Jim looks at him, startled.

"Admittedly, I don't know how old he is - but should we be concerned that he might be…" he fumbles for a polite way to put it.

"Going senile?" Elisabeth finishes, "I don't think so. He's not showing any other symptoms - his memory isn't compromised, he functions perfectly normally around us. It's just these conversations. Maybe we're more aware of them because you overheard him, Jim. I've known a lot of people who talk to themselves - and they were perfectly normal in every way. Sometimes talking to yourself is a really good way to resolve problems."

Jim looks as though he's going to acquiesce, but Malcolm shakes his head, "No - he didn't look like someone who was deliberately talking to himself, Elisabeth; he was clearly looking at a spot about five feet in front of him, and he never deviated from it. It was almost as though someone was standing in front of his desk."

They sit in silence awhile, either finishing their meals, or twisting the stem of a glass back and forth. What do they do? How do they tackle something that they've only seen on a few occasions? What if Taylor actually _is_ going senile?

Malcolm looks up, his expression more concerned now, "Look - if there _is_ a problem with Taylor, we need to do something about what comes next. I think we've all always felt that looking beyond that is something of a betrayal - kind of like Robert Cecil writing to the King of Scotland when Elizabeth the first was getting to the end of her life. Isn't it better we do that _before_ something happens that forces the issue? I don't just mean this stuff with Taylor; Chris found this leaflet today." He fetches the offending article from his pocket.

Jim frowns as he reads it, "God, someone can't spell."

"Perhaps not." Malcolm agrees, "I was taking the mickey a bit with Chris earlier on, but even if it's a rather scrambled bastardisation of Marx and Lenin with a touch of Orwell, that doesn't mean that the writer isn't serious - or that they're better at saying it than putting it in words. There are some astonishingly articulate people around who can't set words down on paper for toffee."

Jim passes the letter to Elisabeth, who reads it with a worried frown before passing it to Yseult. The sentiments are perhaps rendered in rather clichéd terms, but they seem to be deeply felt. Someone in the Colony is unhappy with how things are being run, but they seem completely unwilling to share that with the people who can change those things. Of all the times for it to happen…

Yseult's voice is a little low, "Robert Cecil had to do his arranging for the succession on the sly - because if he'd been found out, he would've lost everything, possibly even his head. In those days, it was considered treasonous to envisage the death of a monarch; and, even though it isn't like that here, we're falling into the same trap."

"What do you suggest?" Jim asks, intrigued.

"That we do what we can to find out who wrote this - and then reach out to them. The one thing we don't want our anonymous writer to do is start plotting behind our backs; not if we can work with them to achieve what they want."

"Unless, of course, what they want is to run Terra Nova instead of Commander Taylor." Malcolm muses, "Sorry if I sound like I'm raining on the parade, but there's so much discontent bound up in that letter - and that they're willing to write it makes me wonder if they want to take over, and they're looking for people to back them."

"Isn't he just suggesting forming a union?" Jim asks, "What's the harm in that?"

"What about the throwing 'of' the 'shakles' of oppression?" Malcolm counters, "And the taking forward to a prosperous future? I thought we were doing that - but this writer doesn't seem to agree."

"I thought that was just grandstanding."

"You're not a politician, Jim," Elisabeth smiles at him, "You're a police officer through and through - and you deal with people in a manner that's as far removed from a politician as it's possible to be. Politicians are in the business of getting themselves re-elected - while your focus is doing what's right - even if it doesn't make you friends. You've never been a power-grabber."

"In which case," Yseult resumes, "We definitely need to find out who this is - and what they want, so we can accommodate their wishes into the future of the colony. If someone feels so discontented that they need to do this, then we need to find out why.

"I'll compare it against the records we have of everyone's handwriting." Malcolm advises, "I can scan this and run it through a comparison algorithm. It'll take a bit of time to do it, given how many colonists we have, and it'll only narrow things down until we can do a visual comparison - but it should lead us to the author. Once we know who it is, we'll be able to form a plan to deal with this."

"Sounds good to me." Jim approves, then changes the subject, "How about an update on that figurehead, Max?"

"I've pulled up every recorded wood core held in the Eye for the period Charlie suggested. All I need her to do now is finish her analysis, and we can then sit down and see if we can get a felling date for the tree. If we're _really_ lucky, it might even be possible to confirm where the tree came from."

Their conversation moves on to other general gossip as Elisabeth fetches out a soya yoghurt dessert that even Jim finds palatable. Tonight, they're just friends having dinner. Tomorrow, they can go back to the problems.

* * *

Malcolm sits back from his workstation with a sigh, "Bugger."

"What is it?" Maddy asks, passing with a stack of petri dishes.

"I was hoping this would work more quickly than it is." He complains, "I'm comparing handwriting samples - but there are rather more hits than I was anticipating. Everyone filled in their paperwork in block capitals, and the algorithm isn't as quick at differentiating between them as I expected."

"Is it working, though?"

"Yes - just very slowly." He admits.

"I think I remember a Chief Science Officer who told me once that slow and methodical beats quick and slapdash." Maddy smiles, "I don't know what you're looking for - but it's better to get it right than get it fast, isn't it?"

"Hoist by my own petard." He chuckles, then looks back at his screen, "I think that there's scope to tighten up the code a little - though my expectations might've been rather optimistic on the timing aspect. Still - at least I'll get there."

She laughs, "Good luck."

As she departs, Malcolm returns his attention to the paper. The mistakes upon it are elementary - but also not the sort of mistakes that someone makes if they're trying to conceal their state of literacy. Most people tend to be less subtle than this - but what if the person they're looking for _is_ that subtle? It's impossible to say.

He looks at his plex as it pings to alert him to a message, and smiles at Yseult's news - at least she's having a better morning than he is.

* * *

"These are really good, Max." Charlie says, "The rings are very well defined, so they're good and easy to count. Based on these cores, I'd say that the tree was felled at the age of about 190 years - so it was fully mature when it came down. There are some interesting bunches of rings at some points which indicate poor growing conditions when the tree was quite young, and I've found some very similar examples from your records."

"And?" Yseult can't disguise her excitement.

"I can give you something approximating a felling date. There are at least six cores here from British naval vessels which show the same profile - and the records of those clearly state that they were constructed in Hampshire - at Buckler's Hard."

"Then that confirms it? The tree _was_ from the New Forest?"

"I think it's safe to say so."

"And a felling date?"

"Around 1750. Factor in about eight to ten years to season the wood, and your ship would've been built somewhere around 1760-ish."

"What about the figurehead itself - would that have been on a naval vessel?"

Charlie shrugs, "Can't tell you that, I'm afraid, Max. I don't think so, though. It's not ornate enough for that - to me it looks more likely to have decorated something privately owned. Possibly a merchantman."

"Would that have been built at Buckler's Hard?" Yseult asks, a little doubtfully, "I thought they built naval vessels there."

"Mostly, yes - but they needed to build things when they weren't, after all. Naval vessels were incredibly labour intensive, yes, and they built sixty there - but I have no doubt they would've taken on private commissions, as well. The place was ideal for shipbuilding in those days. No harm in starting there."

"Thank God the Lloyds records are searchable. I can narrow them down to a specific location."

"Go for Hampshire, Max. Don't single out Buckler's. They didn't just build there."

"I will."

"You look chuffed." Pete says, as he comes into the office, waving goodbye to Charlie as she leaves, "Anything useful in the woodland?"

"Could be." Yseult smiles, "Charlie's found some really good results."

"And no hints?"

"'Fraid not. Sworn to secrecy."

"Such is life. Never mind - Louis is doing a casserole tonight. Fancy some?"

"Wish I could - but I want to look into this. Hope you don't mind?"

"Rain check? No trouble, darling. That's what the freezer's for." He pauses, "Has there been anything going on recently?"

"In what context?"

"Something Louis overheard at a choir rehearsal. Someone's talking about starting up a union in the Agriculture department."

Yseult looks up, sharply, "Are you sure?"

"Not a word of a lie. No idea who, or why; but it's got people talking - the ones who think it's a great idea, and the ones who think it's overcooking the omelette. Why do we need unions? Everyone gets represented, don't they?"

"You're happy, yes - but not everyone is." She sighs.

"Ah - minions wanting to be masterminds." He sits down, "They're saying things about Taylor, though. Apparently he's being recast from father figure to malevolent dictator. God knows why - he's not changed his M.O. that I've noticed."

"Perhaps because they want to make him look like the enemy?"

Pete nods, "I was wondering that. After all, you can't topple a benevolent regime, can you?" He pauses, "If Taylor doesn't know this is happening, you need to tell him, Max. He needs to know so that he can shut this rubbish down."

"We're aware of it Pete - though what you've just said is news to me. I'll raise it at the next staff meeting."

* * *

Malcolm is in the middle of yet another rather stilted reading of a book in Erin's room when she gets home, having been held up by a problem with the blast furnace. It may be larger than the one she first built, but it's still a long way from a truly industrial setup - so she needs now and again to clear it out and re-line it. Ben helps, of course, but it's still a messy, time-consuming job. He doesn't know she's there, and she smiles fondly as he tries - vainly - to sound convincing in his recitation of a text that is as far from scientific as it's possible to get. Erin is already drowsing, and is soon fast asleep, at which point he looks up and sees his wife.

"That was just so lovely." She smiles, as he carefully rises from the seat beside Erin's bed and crosses to kiss her, "Careful - I'm filthy."

"I noticed. And now I am, too."

"That's a shame. I suppose that means you're going to have to join me in the shower."

"First things first." He smiles back at her, leading her through to the bedroom.

Considerably later, and freshly showered, the pair are seated on the couch with post-dinner coffees and Yseult's plex as she begins to examine the records that might help them identify the ship that once carried their figurehead. The initial results are not promising, as shipbuilding on the south coast of England was rather more prolific than she had realised.

"A felling date is all very well," she sighs, "but it doesn't give us an exact date for building a ship; without knowing how long it took to season the wood, it's impossible to work out something so precise. I think there are at least seventy vessels here which might be the one that we want. Some of them are whoppers - ships of the line that fought at Trafalgar - but others are much smaller, and the number of smaller yards are rather more extensive than I realised."

"But we're confident that the original tree was growing in the New Forest, aren't we?" Malcolm muses, "Based on Bram's investigations, that seems likely - though the Carbon 14 isn't probably as helpful as those dendro cores. The best it can do is back them up to some degree; I can't get as accurate as they seem to have done."

"Which isn't _that_ accurate. I've still got a lot of records to plough through. Charlie reckons the figurehead wouldn't have come from a naval vessel so that brings it down a bit - you don't put a figurehead on a fishing smack."

"I wish I could be more helpful." He admits, kissing her neck, "It still amazes me that they've worked out search algorithms that can actually figure out that copperplate handwriting - or are they keyworded?"

She smiles at him, then resumes her perusal, "Pete spoke to me this afternoon. He's overheard some whisperings that suggest our fledgeling union movement is a bit more than a leaflet."

"Seriously?"

She nods, "It sounds like someone's trying to re-cast the Commander as an oppressor, rather than a leader. Unfortunately it's nothing more than whisperings at the moment, so we still don't have a culprit; but it's more than a leaflet now, and that's worrying."

"Welcome back to Tolpuddle." Malcolm sighs.

* * *

"Tolpuddle?" Taylor looks bemused, "You've lost me, Malcolm."

"Sorry, I was being flippant. Tolpuddle was a small town in Dorset; it was where a group of agricultural labourers formed what was in some ways a precursor of a Trades Union - what was known as a Friendly Society. They refused to work for less than ten shillings a week, and the landowner used an old law against the swearing of oaths to get them transported. They were eventually pardoned and came back from Australia - some stayed in Britain, and others emigrated. They were known as the Tolpuddle Martyrs - an the village became famous."

"And this is relevant exactly how?"

"Whoever it is that wrote that note looks to be trying to create something similar - albeit without the 'friendly' and 'society' bit." Elisabeth says, "It's rumoured that someone's attempting to portray you as a remote and unfeeling dictator."

"Wouldn't be the first time." Taylor grunts. Malcolm has the grace to go a little red.

"Have you heard anything, Commander?" Elisabeth resumes, "You said you were going to get someone to look into it alongside Mira."

"Nothing yet." He says, "But Mira hasn't come up with anything either, has she?"

Elisabeth blinks; Taylor is not known for being defensive, and yet he sounds as though he thinks she's criticising him. Bemused, she looks across at Jim, who looks equally surprised. Fortunately, Taylor misses their exchange of a glance, and continues, "So, we've got someone who wants to overthrow me and they're pretending that it's all in a good cause. Any ideas who it is yet?"

"I've narrowed it down to about ten people." Malcolm says, "It's now a matter of examining each example more closely to match up the handwriting. Given the focus on the agricultural department, I'm assuming it's someone there."

"Fair enough." Taylor agrees.

Their discussions move on to the rigours of the growing season, as the planting is now almost complete. Despite the sentiments expressed in the leaflet, the security teams have proved to be extremely helpful to the agricultural workers, as the sheer amount of planting is extraordinary - and remarkably ambitious. Even though everyone pulls out all the stops at the best of times, this year's work has required so much extra effort that the harvest is likely to need almost the entire population to bring it in. If nothing else, it'll test the worth of their storage facilities.

"Several projects in the outposts are coming to fruition." Malcolm reports, "The antibiotics project that would've been Maddy's if she hadn't taken maternity leave is showing excellent results, and we could be able to trial a prototype very soon. Some new strains of mycoprotein are nearly ready, too - which will give us some variety at the dinner table alongside beancurd and gallusaur."

"Yum." Jim mumbles.

"Any more news on that figurehead?" Taylor asks.

"I'm still working on that element," Malcolm admits, "given that it's never been seen in nature before, it's hard to really study as I have no referents. I haven't got anything to work with - just what's left behind by it in the form of a radioactive signature - so anything I come up with is going to be largely speculative, including a potential half-life."

"Which is?" the Commander prompts.

"Half life is the period of time that a radioactive element takes to decay to half its original quantity. The decay is that throwing out of particles that I mentioned when I first described this to you, Commander; it happens at a steady rate, so it can be measured. Unfortunately, without a sample to work from, I'm having to calculate backwards as best I can using the measurements I have of the amount of radiation still present."

"Keep at it." Taylor orders, "Anything else?"

He watches as his team collectively shake their heads. So - he's being cast as a bad guy again; such is life. He's had it done to him before, and he'll have it done to him again, no doubt. Watching them depart, he returns to his desk and sits over his plex. At least the planting's going well - that whole figurehead thing is becoming annoying; too many unknowns.

Half a ton of questions to be asked, and no answers coming from anyone - he's not used to that. Projects are usually well defined, have measurable milestones and a determined outcome. What that outcome turns out to be is not always what they expect just adds to the interest. Now he's got something in front of him that has vaguely defined parameters, no useful milestones, and God knows what they're going to find at the end of it.

What use is this going to be, anyway? So they find a portal - a natural one. How does that change things? It's not like their enemies are going to be able to use it if they can't control the damned things.

God - so many _questions_ …

 _You're worrying yourself again_.

"A lot to worry about." He agrees, "And you're sounding like a mother hen."

 _I thought that was my job?_ The voice sounds amused now.

"Couldn't do without you." He grins back, "Anything?"

 _Only the usual. Patrols, patrols and more patrols. People doing what they should - like they always have._

"Good. I knew I could rely on you." Taylor sits back, looking relieved, "I guess my staff are worrying over nothing."

 _They don't know you like I do. You've always been great at keeping things ordered - this place couldn't run without you at the helm_.

"And you at my side." Taylor looks up at her, "My right hand; right, Wash?"

* * *

"I've got some more nutritional readouts for the mycoprotein, Malcolm," Maddy reports coming into his office as he nods her in, "the toxin analysis came back negative, and the protein count is the best we've seen so far. There are a range of amino acids that we could only get from meat that are present here in equal quantities; from what I've found, it's pretty complete. I think it's even better than chia seeds."

Malcolm accepts her proffered plex, and reads through the results with satisfaction. While they have a reasonably stable source of gallusaur now, meat protein is still a bit of a treat for some, and the provision of something that is not only an acceptable nutritional substitute, but also palatable, is a long-standing goal. Being unable to go out to the outpost herself, Maddy has been co-ordinating the work from the main Labs - something that Malcolm used to be obliged to do - and has proved to be a highly capable organiser. Once Elisabeth Rose is old enough, he is determined that she should get started on that doctorate project that he's been wanting her to start for over a year.

At least her work is going better than his. The traces of radiation that he was able to detect from the figurehead are weak at best, and his attempts to identify the structure of the element that emitted it is very much at a standstill. The only thing he's really done over the last couple of days is think of a name for it: Baldanite, from the Spanish word _Baldío_ , meaning 'empty' or 'barren' land. Appropriate for the location in which the figurehead was found. It's ridiculous, really - what if he's just clutching at straws, and the reading was a false positive? Hell, he's getting nowhere. If only he could work out _how_ the portal works - the basic mechanics of it are pretty straightforward: the radiation must gather somehow, and fuel a natural portal. But how? Why? And, if it does, how often does it happen, and where does it open on the other side?

Without chemistry to help him, the only other option is history. Assuming that Yseult _can_ identify the ship from which the figurehead came, perhaps they can work out its fate. It must've been recorded as lost - and if they can find that record, where and when, then that opens up a lot of other options on how frequently it happens. Assuming that the portal is fuelled by the radiation, which is generated by the decay of this Baldanite stuff, then it has to be cyclical - buildup, generation, existence, exhaustion. If they can work out that cycle, then they can forecast when it'll open next. And that will certainly determine once and for all whether Lucas's refusal to leave the encampment was indeed tied to the next portal's generation.

* * *

Out in the residential areas, Mira and Jim are on patrol again, and her expression as he tells her about the rumours that Louis has picked up is irked, to say the least, "I haven't heard a thing."

"That sucks, doesn't it?" Jim grins, cheerfully.

"It suggests that this goes a little deeper than one disaffected troublemaker." She says, darkly, "If they're keeping it quiet enough that I haven't heard anything, then it sounds to me like it's better established than we realised."

"I don't get why they're so secretive about it." Jim admits, "As far as I see it, there's nothing wrong with representatives from the workforce reporting to Chris, who reports to Malcolm. What's wrong with that?"

"I know what you mean," Mira agrees, "The only trouble is, that someone wants more than that - if they're the sort of person who actually wants to remove Taylor, it tends to follow that they think that they can do a better job than he can. Kind of like: we feed the colony, therefore we're the ones who should be running it."

Jim snorts with amusement, "If they knew what it took to keep this place running, they'd never even think about it."

"Exactly - they don't. To them, it's just Taylor standing on his balcony. Someone wants to push him off it and stand there instead."

"That makes me think that reaching out to this person is going to be a waste of time."

"Whose idea was that?"

"Max's."

Mira nods, "That sounds like something she'd suggest. She's used to working with people equally, and they come to her with their problems. Other than that nutter who tried to rape her, her team are all pretty much on the level and sane."

"You think that she's wrong?" Jim asks.

"No - not entirely. If this person was more willing to come out into the open, then that approach would be ideal - but this person seems so keen to hide that I'm wondering if there's an element of paranoia and conspiracy theorist lurking in it."

"And we're all out of aluminum foil for hats."

"Hopefully Louis will keep listening, and we can get something more. I don't seem to be getting much myself; I guess I'm not quite the 'enemy of my enemy' that I used to be."

"Every silver lining has a cloud?" Jim offers. Mira smiles, a little thinly, "You could say that."

* * *

Yseult looks at her list, and sighs. She's been at this for hours now, but at least she's got her list of possibilities down to five. Two of them aren't really big enough to sport a figurehead, so they're on the reserve list; but the remaining three look very promising. Smiling across at Erin, who is busily banging a pair of plastic bricks together, she types up the names: _Sea Swift_ , _Polly Constance_ and _Artemis_. All trading vessels, all built on the South Coast with New Forest oak.

Unless, of course, she's barking completely up the wrong tree.

"Time to call up the plans, I think." She says to her daughter, "Assuming we have them."

 _Sea Swift_ , is, not surprisingly, a small two-masted schooner designed for speed. Being of lesser size, she probably doesn't sport a figurehead, though perhaps a bird might be possible. The _Polly Constance,_ on the other hand, is a four masted Barque, so she might be large enough - as such vessels were more suited to longer voyages and thus could sport something more hefty on the front. Then there's _Artemis_ , a three masted Barquentine. From the descriptions in the shipping record, the latter two would be most likely - though the actual build plans might cover it.

The search takes a few minutes, during which time Yseult taps a little impatiently upon the tabletop with her stylus. "It would be easier if I had the paper versions, sweetheart," she says, "it'll take a while to read through these."

Then she looks up. She knows that expression on her daughter's face, and the state of the nappy that will follow it, "Great timing, Erin." She sighs.

Malcolm arrives home as she's finishing up, "Ah. I suspect that was a fairly spectacular nappy change?" he says, sniffing the slightly sewage-y tint to the air.

"Sorry. She had a lot of fruit at lunchtime. I guess that was a bit inevitable."

"Do you want me to finish up?" he can see that Erin's a bit wriggly about getting back into her dungarees, "I've brought a salad back from the market. I can dish that up without poisoning the pair of us."

"What's in it for me?" Yseult asks, smiling at him.

"Unwinding in a nice hot bath?" he offers.

"That sounds nice." She agrees.

"As long as you sort out that toxic nappy." He adds.

"Thanks."

The salad proves to be very tasty, and they return to the couch to peruse the shipping records that have now fully downloaded to Yseult's plex. The plans are not as helpful as Yseult had hoped, largely because she can't interpret them; and she sets the plex down in frustration, "I'm sorry, Malcolm. It's just not making any sense - I haven't a clue what all the terms mean."

His own interpretation isn't going to be any better, but Malcolm is nothing if not nosy, and he picks up the plex to switch through the various files, moving on into the ones that Yseult hasn't opened yet. Then he stops, "Max. Look at this."

She shifts to lean against him, and looks at the file he's opened, "Oh, my God…"

It's a sketch, rather crude and poorly coloured, of a young woman, leaning forth from the waist - behind her an apparent pillar of wood. There's something familiar about her…something…

"It's her, isn't it?" Malcolm says, "The figurehead. It's her."

"No - surely not. We can't be that lucky. Can we?"

"Which ship was it on?" Already, he is focusing in, trying to examine the faded, tiny writing more closely. Then he looks at his wife, "I think you've done it, Max. You've found the ship."


	7. Some Guy called Cade

**A/N:** Thank you for your reviews, Leona - yes, Taylor's behaviour is worrying isn't it? I couldn't find a way to bring Wash back from the dead, alas, so I thought I'd recreate her as a construct inside his mind. Given his depth of trust in her, the potential for utter mayhem arising from the hallucinations was too good to miss!

But...the ship is now identified, and they've even worked out where it was built. I've been to that place myself - a very nice spot, in fact...

And still the workers are revolting!

In other news, part one is now completed (the last two chapters are awaiting publication) and I'm ready to kick off the chapter structure for part two. Onwards ahoy! to throw in a cliché nautical term...

* * *

Chapter Seven

 _Some Guy Called Cade_

Mira reads the small piece of paper in her hand, and sighs. Whoever this person is, they just can't seem to let it lie.

 _Comrades_

 _You should know that you are ruled by a corrupt regime. There are no lawyers, no counsil, nothing but military rule. Soldiers tell you what too do. Soldiers keep the gates shut. Commander Taylor rules them, and they rule us._

 _They pretend that you are free. But you are not. Taylor sits in his ivory tower doing nothing while you work in the fields to feed his soldiers. The elite take, while you provide them with food too eat, and they decide how you and you're children live there lives._

 _We are ready too take control and make are home a better place for the workers who give the elite everything. Are you with us?_

 _Your Friend._

It seems that the writer's literacy is still an issue - though the description of Terra Nova as a grossly politically unbalanced oligarchy under martial law is probably taking things a bit too far. While she has no idea what any of the Senior staff earn, she knows from her colleagues who work in the agricultural teams that the pay earned by the field workers is more than sufficient to live on. Why hanker after luxuries when there aren't any? Everyone lives in a house that has the same facilities and amenities - even Taylor does. The overall economy of the Colony is rather less structured these days, as they don't have a mint to maintain a money supply. Consequently, a more virtual currency exists now - and people receive electronic credits in place of terras, which they exchange for goods and supplies. There's still a form of wholesale trade going on, but that's phasing out. Perhaps that's the problem - people like the metallic clinking sound of terras in their pockets. You can't be conspicuous about your wealth if you can't casually chuck a few coins across a bar.

Jim sits down beside her, "That's a stern expression."

"Another missive from the Terra Nova Popular Liberation Front." She says, handing over the letter.

He reads it, "Wow - someone's got a serious bug up their ass."

"Though they haven't bothered to secure a dictionary in the interim."

"I don't get it. Why's this person talking about corruption? No one's having a better life than anyone else at the expense of the community, are they?"

"Of course not. But if you want to dislodge a sitting regime, you have to portray it as being wrong in some way. What better than the 'corrupt because they've been there too long' argument? It's almost tyranny 101 - stay in office longer than you should, and fight to stay there."

"Great. I sound like a total know-nothing." Jim grumps.

"You're not cut out for politics." Mira agrees, sagely, "You're too damn honest."

"What if people start to believe this?"

"Is that a question for me, or just rhetorical?"

"Both, I guess." He admits, "I've got no way of finding out if this sort of thing is just the author, or if there are people who think the same way."

"And there's the rub. Short of asking people, you can't find out - but if you do, you drive the problem even further underground. Not to mention generating more paranoia. In some ways, we'd be playing right into his hands."

Jim sags. She's right - he's dealt with enough people who see persecution in the most innocuous of incidents in his time; and now they've got someone like that here. Dammit - why is it that, even when taken out of a dying world and deposited in a relative paradise, people _still_ find things to be discontented about?

"I'll take this to Taylor." He says, with a sigh.

* * *

Bram is looking at the sketch in fascination, comparing it with a digital image of the remnants of the original, "It looks pretty likely, doesn't it?"

Malcolm nods, "If it _is_ the ship we're looking for, and we're pretty sure that it is, then we can find out what happened to it, and when."

"And from that point, work out how long ago it got here." Bram adds, intrigued, "That'd be something special."

"Well, yes - and no." Malcolm adds, "One date isn't really going to help me work out whether this is a cyclical thing or not; and, if it is, what that cycle might be. I've barely got enough readings of the remaining theta radiation to even _begin_ to work out the half life of this baldanite stuff. In some ways, I'm almost wondering if it's an element that really exists, or I've just misread things and invented it."

"There's only one way to find out."

"Which remains the last resort. I'm not going out there unless we have to - the organisational headaches involved in taking a team out there would be horrendous. You only have to see what happened to the Phoenix soldiers to know that it's a massive undertaking."

"Yeah - but there were a hell of a lot of them."

"I'll think about it." It couldn't be more obvious that Bram wants to go out there and explore. Malcolm, on the other hand, would be quite happy to just leave it where it is, "I need to report this to the Commander before we start planning expeditions out into the Badlands. If this proves to be a red herring, then I'll just end up wasting half a day putting an expedition outline together that we end up not using. We've got a lot more research to do before it gets to that point."

He pretends not to notice Bram's look of disappointment.

* * *

Despite its industrial aspect, the sound of the loom is quite hypnotically soothing. Watching the intricate movements that are almost too fast to see, Yseult sips at a mug of coffee and smiles a little sadly. Geoff built that loom; their popular Chief Engineer who died in the ghastly flash flood that washed them both off the walkway between the waterwheels. How she survived, she still isn't entirely sure - though in Geoff's case, he was impaled on a steel post. She never talks about it these days - after all, what difference does it make now? But that horrible thought that she was going to die in the depths of the river…

She shudders, and pulls herself together. It's not as though she's buried it entirely; she and Malcolm talked it through extensively, as he believed that she had drowned - and came frighteningly close to walking out of the compound in search of a carnivorous assistant to his suicide.

Sipping at the coffee, she turns her mind to more positive matters. Ninette's satisfaction with the standard of cotton fibre that they're creating is obvious - and the quality of the fabric coming from the looms is both excellent and consistent. The coppices are now largely ready to support a larger degree of charcoal making, so they can work the blast furnace more - and, if she can get the quality of the charcoal to _just_ the right point, even steam power might become ecologically viable. Taylor would never agree to any form of power generation that pollutes the atmosphere of their pristine planet. She is able to justify the slag that their iron making generates as it can be ground down and turned into glass, or even mixed with their supplies of cement to create better grades of concrete. As they're doing better with their conversions to steel these days, the slag from _that_ works a treat as a fertiliser. It's an enjoyable challenge - working out how to re-use or recycle the waste products from their industry.

If only she could talk to her colleagues about the figurehead; but she can't. It remains a secret for the time being - as none of them know whether their discoveries are going to be worthwhile, or are instead going to open a whopper can of worms that they might end up wishing that they'd never touched.

"It's looking really good, Ninette." She says, after a while longer watching as though mesmerised by that regular clicking of the shuttle.

"It is, Max. There 'ave been no problems with it. Geoff built it very well." Yseult notices that slight catch in her voice, and sighs. She's thinking the same, then.

"John's looking into steam power for the next one - but I'm going to have to get closer to my goal of white charcoal before we can really bring that to fruition. The stuff we're producing right now isn't really up to that. I can get away with using it for the blast furnace because it's still pretty small. Steam engines are an entirely different kettle of fish."

"Kettle of fish?" Ninette looks at her, intrigued.

"Sorry - one of Niall's many idioms of choice." Yseult smiles, "I'm still picking up new ones from Malcolm."

Her plex chimes, and she looks down to see a message, "Talk of the devil. Ooh, another date with the Shannons. Good - I really didn't feel like cooking tonight."

Ninette laughs, and returns to her loom.

* * *

"Thanks for bringing the salad, Malcolm," Elisabeth says as she dishes out a mycoprotein stir fry, "I didn't have time to do anything elaborate, I'm afraid."

"Sorry." Jim says, "Zoe had a sleepover, so it seemed a good time to call you over. Mira found another letter."

"Found?" Yseult asks, "Was it accidental on the part of the writer, or did they intend for her to find it?"

"God knows." He admits, "We're still not sure if they want to be found out, or they're just being careless."

"I see they still can't spell." Malcolm observes, reading the short note, "But they're definitely starting to show their agenda. I suppose from an uninformed viewpoint, the Commander really does seem to spend his time sitting around his office like a tin god. They probably haven't a clue what it really takes to keep this colony going." He pauses, "It looks like he's widening it out, as well - apparently there's an 'elite' here now."

"That means us, I take it?" Elisabeth says, "I get the feeling that being a medical doctor isn't going to spare me from any purges. There's a bit too much of a whiff of anti-intellectualism lurking in all of this."

"Not to mention a smidgen of 'us versus them'." Malcolm adds, "All this stuff about 'workers', 'soldiers' and 'the elite'. How long is it going to be before he starts attempting to use longer words like 'bourgeois'? If we weren't facing a potential political upheaval, I'd pay good terras to see how he spells that."

"That's a lot of long words." Jim says, "Maybe someone should drop a dictionary somewhere."

"Only if they spend half a morning underlining the right words first."

"It's easy, isn't it?" Yseult says, suddenly, "To sit here poking fun at this person. Are we doing that because we don't see them as a threat - or because we do, and we don't know what to do about it?"

Everyone exchanges rather uncomfortable glances, before Elisabeth speaks, "Maybe a bit of both. It's very hard to view these letters as a danger - given that they're poorly spelled and not well argued. They're simplistic, short and don't have much in the way of evidence to back them up. But they're still anonymous, and we can't even guess who we're dealing with - so we don't know if they're better at arguing their case verbally."

"It's safe to say that they're arguing for better representation, though." Yseult adds, "In some ways, we could head this off at the pass simply by instituting a representative council. Even if it doesn't stop the agitator, it'll certainly kill off their primary argument."

"Taylor won't wear it." Jim sighs, "He holds surgeries, he meets with people - he has us reporting to him. Father-figure or not, he's still military, and councils aren't his thing. Soldiers never like having civilians tell them what to do."

"Apart from us." Malcolm says, "But then, that's where the anti-intellectualism comes in. The letters haven't used that against us yet - but I don't think it'll be too much longer before they do. We might have Commander Taylor's ear, but if this gets a head of steam, then we'll just get lumped into that 'elite' bracket with the Military, and we'll become the enemy as well. Besides, I don't think that's really the ultimate aim of this letter-writer. History tends to be littered with wreckage floating in the wake of people who claim to be removing corrupt regimes to free the people - only to be far worse than the regime they were kicking out."

"And you think that's what's going on here?" Jim asks, though it's not really a question. Even though he has zero interest in politics, it's hard to miss something so overt.

"Looks like it, doesn't it?" Elisabeth answers, then sets her cutlery down, "I think I've lost my appetite."

"I'm beginning to wonder if there's any chance at all that we're actually going to settle down and really make a go of this place." Malcolm admits, tiredly, "Every time I think we've cleared that last hurdle, there's another one stuck in front of us. I had to face the consequences of my father attempting to justify himself in front of a hostile group of people who didn't want to listen. I don't want to have to do that myself."

"It may not get that bad, Malcolm," Yseult says, taking his hand, "We've still got time to head this off at the pass."

"And it all seemed so optimistic last night."

"Pardon?" Jim looks across at him.

"We've identified the ship - or at least, we think we have." He explains, "I was looking forward to announcing that at the next senior staff meeting - and now we've got this to deal with."

"Max is right," Elisabeth says, a little more briskly, "We're getting ahead of ourselves, aren't we? Worrying about something that hasn't happened yet - and something that we can at least attempt to avert. It's something that we need to think about - but we've got other things to be getting on with as well. Why should we set everything else aside because of that?"

"Particularly as we've still got a long way to go to be sure that we're not heading off in the wrong direction." Yseult adds, "We've identified _a_ ship - and we hope it's _the_ ship. If it is, then we've got something to go on."

"How about telling us what the ship _is_?" Jim asks, pointedly.

Yseult laughs, "Sorry - I'm keeping that surprise for tomorrow."

* * *

The drawing is crude, a faint sketch done in pencil and faded watercolour. To an educated eye, it bears all the hallmarks of a sketch of the period - but to most who look at it, it's just a slightly rubbish drawing. Set against the image of the wooden figure, however, there is a marked similarity that is hard to ignore.

"And you think this is the figurehead?" Taylor asks, squinting at the two images on the holo-screen. He looks impressed, "I'd agree with that."

"Based on what we found in the records, quite a few ships have similar sketches - but this one is the only one that comes close to matching." Yseult explains, "So we're confident that the figurehead came from a barque named the _Polly Constance_ …"

"Bark?" Taylor asks, thereby saving Jim from doing it. "A sailing ship of some sort, rather than the noise a dog makes, I take it?"

She nods, "It's a large ship with three or more masts - usually square rigged for the fore and main masts, but the mizzen mast will be fore-and-aft."

Taylor nods, clearly understanding her, though Elisabeth and Jim exchange a bemused glance. The only reason that Malcolm doesn't is because he's already had this lecture, so Yseult turns to them, "Fore-and-aft means that the sails are set along the same line as the keel, as opposed to square rigged, which are set perpendicular to it. 'Mizzen' just means the mast furthest back on the ship."

"What do you know about her?" Taylor asks.

"Not much at the moment," Yseult says, "We've got a build date for her - 1770 - and she was likely built at Buckler's Hard, in between Naval commissions. That's a small shipyard that was located at the mouth of the Beaulieu river on the south coast of Hampshire during the age of sail. She was named after the owner of the shipping company - a businessman called Charles Hadley. I'm speculating here, but I'm wondering if the ship was named after a woman in his life. I might do some genealogical research to see if that's the case."

"What happened to the ship?" Jim prompts.

"That's part of phase 2." Malcolm explains, "We've got a long stint of combing through shipping records ahead of us to trace where she was lost. It's a given that she was - because how else would the figurehead have got here? Though it's not possible to know at this point whether it was just the figurehead that came through, or the entire ship."

"Where does that leave us?" Taylor's expression is intent.

"Not much further forward, I'm afraid." Yseult admits, "Identifying the ship is just the start; if we can trace a likely last known position, then we can use that as a starting point to see if anything else foundered in the same area. That gives us a bit more evidence towards working out how the wormhole functions."

He nods, "Keep at it. What's on your mind, Shannon?"

Jim looks a little startled, "Er…" he pulls himself together, "Another letter from our resident Tolpuddle Martyr."

Taylor reaches for the offending article, and reads it, frowning, "He's pushing the 'corruption' agenda, then. How the hell he thinks there's corruption going on when there's no motive to be corrupt, God knows. It's not like we're still in touch with the future."

"Does he need there to be one?" Elisabeth asks, "Seeing corruption where there's none is at the heart of most conspiracy theories - I used to see it all the time; people convinced that we were complicit in some enormous plot or other. It didn't matter what the plot was - or even if it was based on a rational argument. You couldn't do anything to dissuade them from it."

"Is this spreading, though?" Malcolm asks, "If it stays a lone voice howling in the wilderness, then we don't really need to worry - we just keep looking until we find them and see if we can bring them back from it. But if people start believing it…" he leaves it hanging.

"Then we find him." Taylor insists, "I'll get someone on it."

"Do you want me to keep my ear to the ground?" Jim offers.

"No need. I'll look after it."

"Is it worth looking at setting up some form of citizen's council?" Elisabeth asks, hastily, as Jim looks likely to protest, "If we do that, then it rather takes the wind out of this person's sails. He's demanding representation, so if we make that happen, he's got nothing to complain about."

"That's not what he wants." Taylor shakes his head, "He wants to take over."

"Perhaps so, but he's arguing for something that we can easily institute. If we do that, then we take away a reason for people to take him seriously."

"This place is working fine as it is. I'm not setting up some sort of parliament so that colonists can waste time bickering with each other for hours. I've never seen anything good come out of a committee." Taylor's tone seems very final.

"Isn't it worth at least considering?" Elisabeth persists, "If you like, I can investigate it."

"No. I'm not going down that road, Doc. This place is working - I'm not disrupting it by letting people tear it apart over petty squabbles."

Jim frowns slightly - while he's used to Taylor being set in his ways, he's not usually so keen to shoot down an idea that might be of benefit to the Colony. Yes, he's protective of the place - he always has been - but this feels different. It's as though he's absolutely fixed on keeping things as they are, even though it's clear that there's something going on that he should be worrying about. Rather than challenge the Commander, he instead decides to keep his counsel. He'll need to find out who's being put on this conspirator's trail later, so that he can adjust the rosters accordingly. Yes: it'll keep for now.

The rest of the meeting passes without much incident, though there is still an air of temper about the Commander that leaves his team worried. That he refuses to countenance the creation of a representative council is hardly unexpected - it's in his nature to lead, and the prospect of handing over that command to the Cretaceous equivalent of petty politicians is likely to be hideously galling.

As he descends the stairs, Malcolm re-reads the note, which he retrieved from the table, and sighs, "As for these silken-coated slaves, I pass not: It is to you, good people, that I speak, Over whom, in time to come, I hope to reign; For I am rightful heir unto the crown."

"Pardon?"

"Something I remember from school - we put on a performance of Henry the sixth, part two. I was just part of the general crowd - but I remember that line, because the boy who was supposed to do it just couldn't get it right, and he kept on saying over and over again to try and fix it in his memory. It's a line spoken by Jack Cade."

"That's what I thought." Jim lies.

* * *

Skye examines the cracked glass with a tired sigh. To say that it's been a long day is an understatement, and there's an atmosphere in the colony that makes her rather nervous. Thanks to her time as an unwilling spy for Mira, she has become adept at deception, and picking up on what's going on around her. Something's in the air, but she can't figure out what it is.

"Penny for 'em" Boylan drawls as he sets down more glasses fresh from the dishwasher.

She pauses, as though about to say there's nothing, but then changes her mind, "Is it me, or is there something going on?"

He might have a rather murky reputation, and is hardly known for being Mr Honest, but the gruff Australian has a soft spot for his business partners, and he treats both of them with a lot more respect than he used to. Rather than scoff at her, he nods, "Yeah. I think you're right - people are acting off; like there's some big secret. Just a few; some of the agriculture workers. I've seen 'em in here a few times, looking shonky as hell. If they think they're being subtle, then they're a few short of a bundle."

"Do you think they've got anything planned?" She asks, worried. The last thing they want is more trouble after they've only just got rid of the Phoenix problem.

Boylan shrugs, "If they do, then God knows why they're doing it in here."

"I take it they stand out to you then." It's not really a question.

"Like a shag on a rock." He snorts, "Amateurs."

"What do you think they're doing?"

"I'm not one to speculate," Boylan lies, cheerfully, "but if it doesn't end in fisticuffs, then I don't deserve to be a publican. I'll keep an eye out - if it looks like it's going somewhere, I'll have a word with the Shannon patriarch. They're that obvious, it won't be hard to spot. They might even have a word with me on the sly. I have a reputation in certain quarters don't you know." He adds, with a false air of pretentiousness.

Skye smiles to herself as she looks away, but she's no fool. Her eyes flick back briefly, and she sees it. Boylan's not the only one who can see when something's shonky. He's worried; she can see it in his eyes.

* * *

"What did Taylor say?" Mira asks as Jim sits down beside her on a bench at the edge of the marketplace.

"He's gonna get someone on it."

Mira frowns, "Did he say who?"

Jim shakes his head, "Not yet. I'll ask him later when I fix the rosters. I'll need to factor that in to the security patrols if he's setting someone to look at this."

"What's wrong with him, Shannon?" Mira's voice is lower now, to avoid being overheard, "Why's he not given that job to us, and why hasn't he said who it is that's going to do it?"

Jim opens his mouth to answer, then stops, as he realises he hasn't got one. Rather than gape like a fish, however, he resorts to a simple confession, "I don't know."

Why is he surprised? Of course she's going to notice; Mira's the sharpest person he knows; she misses nothing. Even though she's not a member of the senior staff team, she's as fully aware of Taylor's manner as those who are - if he does something that's out of character, she's going to know it, and mark it. The only difference now is that, instead of taking advantage of it, she'll work to resolve it before it gets out of hand.

"Look, Shannon; I know I'm not trusted - and I accept that. But if there's something putting the Colony at risk, then I need to know. When I came back here, I made a deal: to keep this place safe. I got trapped into a bad situation, and I'm still paying for it. I don't want to make that bad situation worse by standing by while something puts this place in jeopardy."

There's no mistaking her sincerity - he can hear it in her voice. Whatever her motives for leading a rogue band of mercenaries, enforced or encouraged, that's done. Her loyalty, once granted, is absolute, and there's no doubting it now. Besides, her ability to keep a secret is as solid as her loyalty.

"Like I said, Mira," He says, "I don't know. Elisabeth doesn't know. Malcolm doesn't know and neither does Max. It's bothering the hell out of us, too; but…" his voice drops far lower, "…Taylor's started talking to himself - and I don't mean in the way that most people do. It's like he's talking to someone else in the room with him, but there's no one there."

Mira's eyes widen slightly. Whatever answer she was expecting, he can see it wasn't this. "Is he compromised?" She asks, _sotto voce_.

"Not to the point that we can have Guzman relieve him of command." Jim admits, "There's no way that Elisabeth can get him back in for a medical. She practically has to fight him just for the routine ones. Without that, we can't see if he's sick, or whether it's something else."

"Like he's going senile?" Mira asks.

"Let's not go _that_ far."

"We might have to." She mutters, "Are there any plans for continuity if Taylor's compromised in some way?"

Jim shakes his head, "The most it's done so far is get Malcolm quoting Shakespeare."

"Pardon?"

"A speech by some guy called Cade. Jack Cade." He waits, expecting her to launch into an explanation, but instead she looks blank.

"What - you don't know who Jack Cade is?" His disappointment is almost comical to behold.

* * *

"You want to know who Jack Cade was?" Malcolm looks up from a microscope, "Couldn't it have waited until after work?"

"Mira wants to know." Jim fibs. Slightly.

"He led a popular rebellion against King Henry the Sixth - it was one of the precursors to the Wars of the Roses."

"And?" So far the explanation isn't really much help.

"Henry was weak, unpopular, getting on a bit, and was becoming more and more erratic. Plus, his officials were seen as being corrupt and leading him to make bad decisions. Jack Cade was a man from Kent who led an uprising to try and demand that the government be purged of corrupt influences. Needless to say, he got as far as London, where his fellow rebels promptly abandoned their principles and started looting. He lost support, fled, was captured and died of his injuries on the way back to London to face trial."

"Ah." Now he gets it, "Sounds a bit familiar, doesn't it?"

Malcolm nods, his attention half back on his microscope again, so Jim leaves him to it. Hell, it sounds almost like the sentiments in those leaflets. A leader - seen as remote, separate from those he leads; becoming erratic and unstable. Surrounded by an elite that is considered self-serving and corrupt. Along comes someone who aims to demand that those corrupt influences are shut down…

A man who would be king, perhaps? He shudders at the thought.

* * *

Taylor sits back in his chair, looking across the desk to the woman standing to attention before him, "At ease."

She relaxes, and her expression becomes less stiff, "Commander."

"So, anything?"

She shakes her head, "Nothing that I can find. No one knows anything at all, and there aren't any rumours. I hate to admit it; but it looks as though Shannon might be making it up. Either the rest of your staff are in on it, or he's convinced them, too."

"He said that Mira found today's letter."

"She's a Sixer, Sir - she's as keen to take this place away as anyone. It's looking a lot like Shannon's trying to take over from you."

Taylor growls, slightly, "Nah. It's too underhand. Shannon's straight as a die. I trust him almost as much as I trust you - and there's no way he'd trust Mira that much. Anyway, Malcolm had the first one handed to him."

"You think he's being deceived, then?" She asks.

"I'd say so." He shifts in his seat and leans forward, "See if you can find out who it is."

Her expression set, Lieutenant Alicia Washington nods, "Consider it done, Commander."

He sits back again, satisfied, as she departs; seemingly oblivious to the fact that, as she does so, the door neither opens, nor shuts.


	8. Speculation and Deduction

**A/N:** A little Easter present for my readers!

Thanks for the review, Leona - the need to find out what the hell's going on with Taylor is getting more urgent; if they can get him into the infirmary, of course. And more stuff is soon to be discovered on project figurehead!

* * *

Chapter Eight

 _Speculation and Deduction_

Busy over his accounts, Josh looks up now and again at Skye as she works at the bar, serving coffees to a group of stallholders who've finished for the day. He is not ashamed to admit that, prior to his arrival in Terra Nova, he was almost idiotically naïve, and the stupid things that he did in those days prior to the arrival of the eleventh pilgrimage - the ease with which he could be led, earned him only the disappointment of his parents, and the death of the young woman that he loved.

That he has grown up considerably since then is an understatement. The occupation forced that on him, as well as the inevitable growth of maturity that caused him to recognise the ease with which he had been manipulated. Skye's motives, of course, were driven by her need to save her mother. Boylan's were - well, just Boylan being Boylan. These days, he is a hell of a lot more wise, and - as a consequence - it could not be more obvious that Skye is keeping something from him.

Coming back to sit with him, Skye notices his glance, and has the grace to look a little sheepish, "I know." She sighs.

"If I didn't know you as well as I do, I'd think that you were doing something behind my back." He says, perusing the balance sheet, "You've seen it as well?"

"What, that small group of people from the fields?" she asks. In spite of herself, she's surprised that he's noticed it. He certainly _is_ becoming more acute.

He nods, "Mom and Dad aren't as good as keeping it to themselves as they think they are. Something's going on. If nothing else, Max and Malcolm have been over for dinner a hell of a lot recently. I know they're good friends these days, but they don't normally get together as often as this."

Skye nods, "I think it's a couple of things." She looks about, then lowers her voice further, "Something's wrong with the Commander, as well. He was really weird at Solstice."

Josh turns to her, startled, "Seriously?"

"Don't say anything, Josh." Skye warns, "Boylan may not be as bad as he used to be - but if he finds out that Commander Taylor's sick, he'll get that bad again real fast. If your parents and the Wallaces know about it, then we leave it to them. I found out the hard way that trying to help in the background nearly always makes things worse."

"It's worth telling Dad about the meetings, though." Josh observes, "He probably knows it's going on - but they only meet when he's on patrol, so he doesn't see them in here."

She takes his hand and squeezes it, prompting a smile from him, "I'm glad your dad's a cop."

* * *

Yseult sits back from the plex with a sigh, "This is going to take ages."

Looking up from the letter he's still studying, Malcolm appears surprised, "What - doesn't the search function work?"

"Not with these." She says, "The records covering ship losses are massive, and it looks like they were still in the process of working on them when the records were uploaded to the Eye. It's back to good, old fashioned searching by eye - and with writing like this, I can't skim. If I do, I'll miss things. Are you having any better success with yours?"

He frowns, "I'm not sure. Now that I'm looking at this in more detail, I think our writer's been rather more subtle than I realised. The writing's very precise - and I've got the initial ten down to three, but none of them strike me as being overly discontented. Apart from anything else, they're too senior."

Abandoning her own work, Yseult sits down beside him and spends a few minutes looking over the document, "I see what you mean - it's like someone's taken a lot of care to conceal their real handwriting, isn't it? Almost as though they used the wrong hand."

"Damn." Malcolm raises his eyes to the ceiling, "Why the hell didn't I think of that? I've wasted a stupid amount of time on this, and it's got me precisely nowhere. It could _still_ be anybody."

"It was worth a try, though."

"The only good thing is that I spent a bit of time on an algorithm to work on that encrypted data, so it's been running in the background. I still don't know what we'll get - but the results are looking a little more promising than they did. At least there's _some_ progress being made. With a bit of luck, I should have an answer by the end of tomorrow."

"That sounds good."

Returning to her plex, Yseult continues her slow perusal of records. She's learned a lot more about the _Polly Constance_ herself - a trading Barque that plied the oceans for the Hadley shipping company, and named after Polly Constance Hadley, the ship owner's daughter. Now it's a question of tracing the voyages, until she finds the one that gives them a clue where she was lost, and thus a reference point to see if her loss is part of a pattern. That she only has the records lodged with Lloyds of London, as the insurer, doesn't help. The company records would've been perfect, but they haven't been preserved.

Given the risks of sailing in those days, of course, the loss of a ship was a regular occurrence, and depending on the location, it could be shockingly frequent. Consequently, there are a hell of a lot of records to get through. Given that she is now perusing them on a nightly basis after work, it could still be a good long time before she can get to the point where she can give Malcolm something new to work with.

"Fancy a drink?" he asks, standing behind her and slipping his arms over her shoulders.

"That'd be lovely. This is a slow process. The references I have at the moment show successful voyages, which is great - but at the same time, it's frustrating because I need the one that wasn't."

"Where are you up to?"

"1781. Without knowing when the ship was lost, I have no idea how many more years I have to go through before I get to it."

"In that case, I'll get you a cup of tea."

* * *

"Dad." Josh looks a little uncomfortable, as though he's hiding a secret, which always sets off alarm bells in Jim's head, "I think there's something you need to know."

His expression isn't one of someone who's just proposed, and for a moment he feels an irrational stab of concern - is he sick? What is it? Is there something wrong with Skye?

"It's not whatever you're thinking, Dad." Josh says, quickly, seeing the flash of worry, "It's something we've seen in the bar."

Now it's a frown, "What've you seen?"

"When you go out on patrol with Mira, there's a small group of people from the Agriculture department that get together as far back from the bar as possible. We've all seen it - they look as though they're talking about something and don't want to be overheard."

Immediately, Jim's senses are on alert. It's no surprise that the anonymous plotters would do so as far out of his view as possible - but it says a lot that they only go in the bar when he's not there. If they've got nothing to hide, why be so sneaky? But then, if they're _that_ obvious about their behaviour, perhaps they're not as stupid as all that, after all. He may have no political acumen, but Jim hasn't got to where he has by being oblivious to other people's activities.

"Any idea who they are?" he asks, at once.

"Not all of them - just one or two, because they're regulars. One of them's Tom Jackson, one of the planting team leaders, and the other's Zack Drummond, a guy in one of the picking teams. The rest only seem to come in to have these meetings. There are usually four of them, but it can be as many as seven."

"Thanks, Josh. That's more information than I've got in nearly six weeks." He says, pleased, then decides to confide in his eldest son, "Just so you know - someone's started getting political on us, and they're talking about starting up a union. Doesn't sound that harmful, but some of the language is getting inflammatory."

"I'll see if I can find out who the others are." Josh offers, "I think Skye can do it without people catching her. She's more popular than me, and she doesn't have the 'Shannon' label. It tends to put people off if I talk to them because they think I'll report everything to you." He pauses, "Do you want me to get Boylan involved?"

"Not unless we get seriously desperate." Jim declines, after all, Boylan still hasn't really proved that he can be trusted to that extent. There's no guarantee that he won't see an advantage in working with this bunch of agitators and helping them overturn everything they've fought for. It'll be a long, long time before he can find it in himself to really trust Tom Boylan.

"Fair enough." Josh agrees, "I've gotta get back to work. See you later."

As he departs, Jim sighs. It looks like Mira's 'Terra Nova Popular Liberation Front' joke has a ring of truth to it, after all.

* * *

Sitting over his lunch in the kitchen, Malcolm looks up sharply as his plex alerts him to a completed process, and he sets down his fork to check it. No matter how good the food, work always seems to trump it.

A few swipes, and the source of the alert is revealed: the algorithm has finished. More importantly, it's worked.

"Good God…" while he's always been excellent with electronics and coding - as it suits the logical turn of his mind - Malcolm has never viewed himself as a hacker, but to describe this as 'successful' is an understatement. Whoever did this clearly didn't think that anyone would attempt to break the encryption, as doing so has not destroyed the data. Such was the conceit of Weaver and his cohorts.

There's a lot to work on - the files are huge - but with luck, he'll have something worthwhile to report to the Senior Staff at tomorrow's meeting.

* * *

Taylor's expression is odd - bad tempered, yes, but also with a vague sense of hostility that they've never seen before. All four of his staff look at him a little nervously as they seat themselves. Either whatever's wrong is getting worse, or he's had some seriously bad news - and either possibility is something they'd rather not experience.

If he's managed to make any progress in identifying the writer of the letter, or anyone with them, he doesn't seem likely to volunteer the information, and instead sits quietly - a black-clad thundercloud - as his team make their reports. Neither he nor Jim draw attention to the fact that he has not identified the member of the security team he has assigned to investigate the unknown protester, and instead he reports back on the usual matters - incidents, security details and anything that he and Mira have discovered while on patrol.

They continue with updates from the fields and labs, while Yseult reports on work at her compound. Finally, Elisabeth advises that medical matters remain as they were.

"What about the figurehead?" Taylor asks, largely because that is the next item on the agenda. Even now, his mood seems not to have improved.

"Er…" Malcolm stutters briefly, intimidated by that vague air of hostility, "We've identified the ship, as you know, and we're in the process of following its working life via Lloyds records. I've also been able to decrypt the data on that chip that Mira gave me - and there's a hell of a lot of information. A lot of it's of no use to us now as it's inventories, personnel lists and details of financial transactions with various businessmen who became intimately involved with the interior of a Carnotaur's digestive system. What we _do_ have, however, is a set of data readouts and topographical details of half of the continent."

Suddenly, Taylor's expression is more animated, "How the hell did she get that?"

"One of her team stole it from Commander Hooper's plex just before they left the encampment. I think she was hoping there would be something she could use to persuade you to let them back into the Colony - but they couldn't decrypt it, so she didn't risk offering it in case it turned out to be useless."

"What can we do with it?" Jim asks, equally intrigued.

"Well, our navigational aids are reduced to altogether older fashioned methods these days as we don't have satellites to calculate positions from. Once we get beyond the navigational beacons for the outposts, we're largely working blind, as we don't know how the land lies without going there ourselves. What this does is give us the ability to pinpoint a location and identify its latitude and longitude - then all you need is standard navigational equipment to go and find it."

"What areas does it cover, Malcolm?" Suddenly, that hostility seems to have gone.

"The entire area that the Colony covers - including the outposts, and," He pauses, almost for effect, "Pretty much the entire area of the Badlands."

Everyone is staring at him.

"Look, before anyone gets too excited," he adds, "I don't want people thinking that this is the equivalent of an Ordnance Survey map. It tells us the contours of the land, and there are measurements that we can use to calculate positions. But it doesn't tell us whether the land is safe to cross, or where there's water. It just covers depressions and elevations - and there are a hell of a lot of them, so I can't be sure whether any of the depressions are an impact crater, or a natural bowl caused by other processes."

"And you want to go and find out." Taylor finishes.

Malcolm shakes his head, "Not yet, Commander. Until I have an idea as to how the natural portal works, we'd be wandering around all over the place, and quite possibly never find anything. At the moment, I don't have enough data to even make an educated guess as to whether the portal is fuelled on a cycle, or if it's entirely random. If it's random, then the degree of luck involved in finding it would be off the scale - but if it's cyclical, _and_ we can work out the cycle, then that makes the difference. For all we know, it may have just fired up - and might not do so again for years to come."

"If nothing else," Elisabeth says, "It explains why Lucas refused to move from his encampment, doesn't it?"

"That was my thought." Malcolm agrees, "I was hoping that there might be some records in that data which might have helped with that - but that was a hope too far. Lucas never shared his research - not even with someone who wouldn't have had a clue what it meant, and wouldn't have known what to do with it."

"He kept it in his head, and wrote it on rocks." Taylor growls, then sits back, "I've got nothing on this letter writer. I'll let you know when I have it."

Everyone stares at him - did he just dismiss them? It's impossible to say.

"I have." Jim says, causing Taylor to glare at him, "We might have a couple of names to work with."

"Mira, I take it?" Taylor asks, as though he expects it to be lies.

"Josh, actually. He and Skye have noticed some unexpected meetings in the bar."

"Go on."

"There's a group of people that gather in the bar when I'm out on patrol. Josh doesn't know most of 'em - just two. A couple of guys from the planting and picking teams. There are usually two others with them - but it can be as many as seven."

"Who's the ringleader?" Taylor asks, at once.

"He didn't say - I guess it wasn't that obvious. It's not like he could go up and ask them."

"I'll pass that on."

Again, that sense of dismissal. Rather than object, Jim nods and rises, prompting his colleagues to do likewise. It's bemusing, but now is not the time to challenge it. Not when they don't know the cause.

"Dinner tonight?" Yseult asks, with feigned cheerfulness, as they descend from the Command Centre, "My treat."

* * *

No one has much appetite as they sit at the dining table, picking at the meal that Yseult has provided. It couldn't be more obvious that something has shifted in Taylor's perception of them. It's as though he has ceased to trust them; or, at least, has returned to that sense of uncertainty over their trustworthiness that existed in the early days after the arrival of the tenth pilgrimage.

"I need to get him in, don't I?" Elisabeth says, worriedly, "And I need to do it before he gets worse. It may be just his mood today - but if it isn't, then we could find ourselves pushed out - and that could give the malcontents a real reason to move against us."

"Let's see how he is tomorrow." Yseult suggests, "If this carries on, then we know that we've got to do something."

"I've asked Josh to see what he and Skye can do about finding out who these other people are in that group that's so careful to be in the bar when I'm not." Jim adds, "If we know who the ringleader is, then we can try talking to them and see what they want."

"From what the graffiti was saying, they want rid of Taylor." Malcolm sighs, "And that's the one thing we _don't_ want. Until we've got something in place that's got his blessing and involvement, it's him in charge or no one."

"And if you say it," Jim adds, grinning, "it _must_ be true."

"At least I didn't have to admit that the handwriting test was a failure." Malcolm admits, "I didn't give the writer enough credit - he disguised his handwriting just enough to make it impossible to be absolutely sure who it was."

"Let's see what Josh and Skye come up with." Elisabeth advises, "If they _can_ identify the ringleader, we can approach him - or perhaps Chris can? Maybe a neutral party might be better."

"It's a thought - though Chris reports to me, so he might be too close to the imagined 'elite'. I'll ask him if he can think of someone we could try, once we know who we've got to talk to."

"And there the matter rests. Again." Yseult sighs, "It seems that, we get so far, and no further - all the time."

"How much further have you got now?" Elisabeth asks.

"1792." She sighs, "I'm getting used to the writing now, but it's still a pig to read, and I've got to be so careful not to miss anything."

Before she can say anything else, Malcolm's plex pings to alert him to a message. Being utterly unable to ignore messages about work, he reaches for it, and reads it, "Hell, I think we can do it."

"What?" Jim asks.

"It's Bram - he was examining the figurehead again, and he's found a sample of rock that's got strong traces of something in it that's giving off theta radiation. I think he's found us a sample of baldanite."

"Baldawhat?"

"Sorry - it's the name I gave to that theoretical element I was talking about; I named it after the Badlands - the Spanish word 'baldío' that means 'empty land', or if you prefer, 'barren land.'"

"Ah."

Malcolm looks much more cheerful now, "Well, that sorts out what I'm doing tomorrow."

* * *

At first glance, the sample doesn't look like much - just a small fragment of sandstone. But it's flecked with shards of something glassy, as though something shattered into it, and Malcolm looks at it with great interest, though it's now behind thick glass in a safety cupboard.

"My readings were going crazy, Malcolm," Bram advises, "It's not my field, but even I can identify what the rad-meter's saying. That's theta radiation, and there's something fused into the sandstone."

"That's a seriously good find, Bram." He agrees, examining it carefully with his thickly gloved hands, "I can get to work measuring the rate of decay; and once I have that, I'll be able to sort out some theories as to how quickly it's likely to gather enough to trigger a portal."

"Progress, then?"

"Most definitely." He agrees, "It's about time we had some luck. With a bit more of it, once Max has found out what happened to the _Polly Constance_ , I can use that data to help find out if there are any specific circumstances about it that we can use to check later records for other disappearances."

"Do you think there might be?"

"At this point, I'm not discounting anything."

It's not going to be easy to extract the tiny flecks of baldanite - assuming that's what it is - as it's throwing out a shocking amount of radiation. He's going to have to do it all behind glass, which is very fiddly at the best of times, and with only a minimal sample. Still, it's better than nothing, and he's well aware that he's been handed a real stroke of good fortune.

"Whereabouts did you find this?" he asks, as he plans.

"It was caught in the fixings, Malcolm; and - you'll love this - they were made of lead. We couldn't find it because it was completely shielded by the lead."

That explains a lot.

"Do you need me to do anything?" Bram asks, as he has a lot of other projects to work on.

"Not right now, Bram. Thanks - you've got this project right back on track again."

"Happy to help."

* * *

Mira's expression is not pleasant, "Whatever clout I had with the discontented," she complains, "it's gone. I'm tainted by your aura of authority, Shannon."

He snorts with amusement. She is not at all pleased to discover that Skye and Josh have spotted something that she hasn't, "Sorry, Mira. Working with me has its advantages - my humour, charm and general all-round-greatness; but it's not all root beer and cheerios."

"Tell me about it." She sighs, "Any new graffiti recently?"

They round a corner on their patrol, and stop, "Yes." Jim says, eyeing the evidence right in front of them.

GET RID OF THE ELITE! UNITE TO PROSPER!

"Okay. That's rather definite." She says, "Should I start backing away from you now, or leave it for a few days?"

"I'd make a joke about it being spelled right - but what it's saying is getting too close to the bone. Who the hell around here is the 'elite' anyway? It's not like I'm living in a palace."

"Does it matter?" Mira asks, "The argument doesn't have to be rational - just convincing. There's a small group who have the ear of the commander - and that constitutes an elite to those who don't. It doesn't matter that Taylor holds surgeries and people can talk to him directly - or that he personally arbitrates over disputes. If you're a crop planter, or a fruit picker, you're bound to feel a long way away from the centre."

Jim sighs. Put like that - it's pretty obvious, really. The trouble is, with a population of nearly eleven hundred, now that there are so many kids around, how do you create a system of government that represents everyone's interests? Everyone's different, and they all have entirely different aspirations. But then - if a fruit picker is out in the fields getting rained on, bitten by insects and God-knows-what-else, then they're not exactly going to be happy to hear about the travails of a biochemist in their dry, clean lab.

"Everyone's got their own agendas, Mira. We can't fit them all into how this place runs."

"You don't have to tell me that, Shannon. I led a group of misfits in a tree-top village - I know what it's like to have to keep a lid on a bunch of people who don't like being told what to do. The difference here is that Taylor doesn't use the sanction of chucking someone out of the colony except as a last resort."

Jim shudders at the implications of _that_ remark, "I'll get Chris to organise a cleaning crew."

* * *

"They're back." Skye observes, as she pretends to be talking to Josh, who is busy drying glasses with his back to the tables beyond the bar, "There are seven today." After a brief pause, she suddenly laughs, "You look ridiculous, Josh - I've gotta take a picture of that!"

Rather than ask her what the hell she's talking about, Josh immediately goes with it, "Okay, so I've got a stain all down my arm - do you have to?"

"Come on - left a bit." She raises her plex, takes care to focus, and takes a picture, "There."

They set the plex on the bar and examine the result, Josh pulling a face, "It looks stupid."

"I'll send it to Zoe, then."

"You wouldn't!" he pretends to try to snatch the plex, and she tussles with him briefly, before hitting 'send'.

"There - done!" She laughs again, "I look forward to seeing your revenge." Then she checks the plex, "And it's been delivered."

Her expression satisfied, she retreats to bring in some glasses from the nearby tables, while Josh looks again at her photo of the conspirators, which she has actually sent to his Dad. Raising his eyes, he glances briefly at the group, who continue their meeting, utterly oblivious to all that has occurred behind them.

* * *

"Take a seat, Chris," Malcolm says, as his field manager arrives, "I'll be with you in a minute, I've got some results coming through."

"Sorry about that message," he calls back as Malcolm checks that the results have downloaded to his plex, "I haven't a clue who's doing it."

"I think we might have." Malcolm says, more quietly, as he returns, "I've just had this from Jim Shannon - Skye took it earlier this afternoon in Boylan's."

Chris takes the plex and squints at the picture, "Ah. That explains a lot."

"You know them?"

"Oh yes, I certainly do." He says, "You've got Tom Jackson - he's a bit of a rabble-rouser, though he's never been brave enough to follow it through. The one to the left of him is Joe Peck, one of my fruit pickers. He's in the top fruit team - they do apples, pears and so on. Then you've got Paul Thatcher, he's one of the planters, and Butch Thackeray, who's one of our ploughmen. That's Zack Drummond, he's with Joe on the top fruit picking team, and Andy Packer - one of the soft fruit pickers. None of them are particularly troublesome, but…" he pauses.

"But?" Malcolm prompts.

"We could have a problem."

* * *

Elisabeth frowns, "Chris thinks that the ringleader is someone called Bob Parker?"

Malcolm nods, "It might be. I remember him giving us a really filthy look a few weeks back when Chris was talking me through the plans for this year's planting. Chris said it was because he wanted to be appointed Orchard Manager while the incumbent was on maternity leave - but there was already someone more qualified to do it. To his mind, if anyone could be doing this, it's probably him. He's always been intent on getting to a management position, but hasn't got the qualifications to do it."

"So, do we approach him?" she asks.

"Chris says not to. Apparently he's got chips on both shoulders the size of a continent - and he's a past master of deliberately misinterpreting statements to invert arguments against him. If we're going to approach anyone, he suggests Thackeray - he's interested in politics, but not to the point where he's irrational about it. It could be that he's something of a stabilising influence in the group. Besides, as a ploughman, he's one of the more qualified and better paid workers in the Agriculture Department, so he's got less of an axe to grind."

"There, all done." She says, accepting the results from the medical, "That's your fifty thousand mile service done for another year."

Sitting up on the bio-bed, Malcolm swings his legs to the side ready to stand up again, "Any luck in getting Taylor in here?"

She shakes her head, "I haven't managed to get the nerve up to ask him." She admits, "He's a nightmare to get in here at the best of times - and I can't find a reason to do it that he'll accept."

"It's amazing, isn't it?" he says, as he gets up, "We're stalled on all fronts - and then suddenly it all starts coming together. We might have our graffiti artist, I've got the sample of baldanite that I need, and we're getting closer to working out what happened to that ship. Max is going through 1793 this evening. We might even make it three in a row."

"Fingers crossed." Elisabeth smiles, "I'll get these results analysed and let you know that you're absolutely fine later."

* * *

Yseult is in the shower when he gets home, having overseen the opening of the latest charcoal pile, while Erin is in her playpen, engaged in some vitally important investigative work involving a cloth book and her newly emerging teeth. She laughs delightedly as he lifts her up to give her a kiss, and he rests her on his hip as her mother emerges from the bedroom, "You look pleased."

"That would be because I am." He smiles, as she kisses him on the cheek, then follows her across to the kitchen, where interesting smells are emerging from the oven, "I've measured the rate of decay of the baldanite, so, assuming we can find a likely spot, I can make some estimates as to how much buildup is needed to trigger a wormhole. Given how much is coming out of it, I can't believe it's a one-off thing. It must work on a cycle - and we just need to work out what that cycle is."

Dinner eaten, the washing up done, and Erin fast asleep, Yseult settles down again with shipping records while Malcolm examines the topographical records from Hooper's data. There's going to be a crater - that's obvious - but how much it's filled in depends on how long ago it impacted, how big it was, and whether it was an actual impact or an air-burst detonation. Based on the coordinates that Mira was given, he has a few candidates - but all of them are a bizarre distance away from the spot where she found the figurehead, and he can't help but wonder how on earth it got so far away from any of them. As Mira had said, it wouldn't have grown legs and walked.

"I've got it!" Yseult says, suddenly, startling him from his perusal.

"What?" he gets up and joins her.

"The _Polly Constance's_ last voyage - she was reported lost in late August 1793. She departed Dartmouth in April, bound for Antigua with a cargo of sundry items for the British colony there, and arrived in June with some major damage to one of her masts. She put out to return to Dartmouth with a cargo of sugar and rum - but was lost about a week later. Her last reported position was two hundred nautical miles to the north west, when she was spotted by another merchantman."

"And?"

"This could almost be a gift, Malcolm." She says, "About three hours afterwards, the lookout reported a bright flash on the horizon - coming from the same direction that she'd gone. It was assumed to be a meteorological or astronomical phenomenon, but the captain of the merchantman went back, because he thought it might be a problem with the cargo - but he couldn't find anything except a single top-most sail, floating on the surface."

Malcolm examines the record, struggling to figure out the ornate, copperplate handwriting, "So they decided there must've been munitions on the ship?" he says, looking at the final statement.

"Looks like it. I imagine that didn't go down well with the Government - Britain was at war with America at the time, and it must've looked like they were attempting to smuggle munitions. I'll see if I can find out what happened to the company - chances are that, if that was the view, it wouldn't have lasted very well."

"What does this say?" Malcolm asks, checking a small note at the end, "I can't make it out."

Yseult squints over it, "Ah - it looks like the ship owner was aboard. It's saying he was lost with the ship."

"Give me a minute." Malcolm returns to his own plex and spends nearly ten minutes frowning over it as he scribbles with a stylus, calculates, deletes, tries again and then finally sits back, "Okay - based on the various likely depressions, I've pulled out a geographical algorithm that works out their cubic volume." He continues to tap with the stylus, "If I apply it to these figures, I might be able to get an estimate over how long it would take for the radiation to build up enough to fuel a wormhole. Assuming that the degree of distribution of the baldanite is constant in the bedrock debris…"

She watches, fondly, as he seems almost now to be talking to himself as he calculates. It's one of the things she loves about him: his brow furrowed in concentration, his eyes fixed on his work. She'd grab him and kiss him - but he's busy.

At length, he sits back up again, "Right. Give or take, I think we're safe to say that we're looking at a cycle of about thirty years. It's complete guesswork, but there's enough evidence to support it. Just."

"So, all we need to do is work out spans of thirty years from 1793 to the current year in the future to have an idea when it might open next?"

"I'd say so."

"Right, it'd be 2153 if we were still in the future, so…" she calculates a bit, then looks up, "If you're right, then it's going to happen this year."

"Seriously?" Immediately he comes back to join her, "My God - we could witness the formation of a natural wormhole…"

"This is why Lucas stayed where he did, isn't it?" Yseult says, "But he ran out of time."

Then Malcolm's face falls, "We've got to go out there." There are a multitude of fears wrapped up in his words. Much as he would be delighted to witness said wormhole formation, the downside is being forced to go back into the Badlands: something he all-but swore never to do again.

"We don't know for sure that it's going to happen, Malcolm." Yseult reminds him, "We still need to do a bit more research - it might be that we're wrong, and it's not going to happen for years."

He looks doubtful; this is probably the first time he's ever hoped that a calculation of his is wrong. Fear of the Badlands aside, the real danger seems to be here in the colony. Not to mention the sheer degree of organisation such an expedition would demand - would it be better to let things lie?

Somehow, whatever the answer is - Malcolm is quite convinced that he's not going to like it.


	9. Evidence

Thanks for the review, Leona, it's been fun creating that partnership between Jim and Mira; she's got a lot more to her than just 'the baddie', and it's nice to bring it out. Even if I _am_ making it up - Lord alone knows what would've happened had there been a second season; but as there wasn't, I get to make the decision!

Yes, it's time to head out to the Badlands, with a Commander who's talking to a dead person - the first hints of a reason for it shall shortly be made clear as we wend our way to the close of part one...

* * *

Chapter Nine

 _Evidence_

Taylor looks up from his plex: he is not alone, "I should remind you to knock before you come in." He says, with a mildly skewed smile, "Anything to report?"

Washington shakes her head, "Nothing, Commander; whatever it is that Jim Shannon's worried about, it's not what he seems to think it is. I'm more worried about Mira - why have we got a Sixer doing security?"

Taylor sighs: it's hardly a question that he hasn't been asking himself over the last year, "Shannon's watching her. If she tries anything, he can stop her."

"Are you sure about that, Sir?" She asks, "They seem pretty close to me."

And again - she's articulating the thoughts he's been having since Mira returned to the Colony. It was always a calculated risk, re-admitting the men and women who betrayed their fellow pilgrims and took to the Canopy, but what choice did he have but to do it?

"She's done it once, Sir," Washington says, leaning forward, her knuckles on his desk, "If this is a play to take over, then why would anyone else be doing it but her?"

"Are you reading my mind?"

"If you're thinking what I'm thinking; then yes, Sir."

He chuckles, "Get out there and keep looking, Wash. If Mira's up to something, we stop it quick, and we stop it hard. No second chances."

"Yes Sir." She stands back again, nods, and turns to depart. Distracted by an incoming message on his plex, Taylor doesn't notice that the door remains untouched, or that there are no retreating footsteps down the stairs.

The message is intriguing - though he is surprised that Malcolm is suggesting a mission out into the Badlands after what happened to him the last time he was out there. That said, the discovery that there might well be another portal from the Cretaceous to the Holocene is one that they can't afford to miss - after all, what might it bring through?

His upper lip draws into a snarl as he thinks of Weaver and his cohorts; the last thing they need is another portal to bring greed-driven men through it and snatch away all that he's built here. If there's a portal out there, then the sooner he finds it, and blows it to smithereens, the better.

* * *

Now that he knows the identities of the apparent conspirators, Jim is in something of a quandary. While it would seem eminently sensible to make contact with the seven men who seem to be intent on holding surreptitious meetings that are anything but, he has no idea how to do it without driving them all underground. Given that they're so keen to meet when they think that there's no law enforcement around - such as it is - they must be doing something contrary to the safe and orderly operation of the colony. After all, if it's innocuous, why go to such lengths to hide it. Come to that, why do it so badly? Hell - maybe they _do_ want to get caught.

He might joke about being a bit slow on the uptake, but Jim is hardly unintelligent - and he knows it, too; the only difficulty he's having is that his mind doesn't work in the same way as the men who gather when he's not around. He's a lawman, not a politician - and he's never used a sentence with the word 'bourgeois' in it in his life. In fact, other than it being a favoured criticism in communist circles, he's never really bothered to work out what it even means. Political power struggles are just not his thing.

Mira sits down opposite, her expression rather odd.

"What's up?"

"Malcolm's put my name on a staff manifest to go out into the Badlands." She says.

"To look for what I think he wants to look for?"

Mira nods.

"And you're surprised he wants you to go along?"

"I guess I'm not used to being in demand," She admits, "It feels strange to be required to do something as a member of staff. Malcolm wants me along more because I know how to survive out there - rather than because of what I know about you know what."

"How's Taylor taking it?" Jim asks, grinning now. The thought of Taylor leading an expedition with Mira in the party is rather amusing.

"No idea - but I can't see him liking it all that much." Mira sighs, "I think he deals with me being here because I helped him to get Malcolm back here alive - but he's still working on the 'trust' part of it."

"How long does he think you'll be away?"

"I don't think he's got that far yet - he's still trying to balance the number of people he can take with the amount of supplies he's going to need to get us out there and back again. It's a lot of ground to cover - we had to go a hell of a lot further out than where the encampment was just to find that figurehead; and it was nowhere near any likely trigger point for a portal if Malcolm's right about how they form."

Jim shrugs, "C'mon, let's get out on patrol. Josh'll let me know if your Popular Liberation Front guys turn up. Three clicks on his comm unit."

"Which he can do from his pocket." Mira approves, "You'll make a spy of him yet."

* * *

Busy with cooking their dinner, Yseult looks up now and again to see that Malcolm is very pensive, though he is doing his best to hide it. As Erin's clearly a little fractious, it's likely that he's not even fooling her.

It's obvious why; she knew it the moment his frightened voice awoke her in the night to comfort him, sweat-soaked and trembling, as he fought his way out of that horrible nightmare of swarms of scorpions. It's been nearly eight months since the last time she had to do that - and that, more than anything else, tells her how much he fears what lies ahead; discovery of a lifetime or no.

He's going to present his final expedition plan tomorrow for Taylor's approval - which he's likely to get, as everyone's keen to know what they're dealing with out in the Badlands. It's his intention that he will manage the scientific work, while Mira guides them and keeps them from killing themselves in the brutal environment. The recently promoted Lieutenant Dunham will lead a security contingent, with Reynolds as his second-in-command. Between them, that should keep them all alive, and hopefully they'll learn more about this wormhole, and where the figurehead came from.

Yseult is roused from her musings by the smell of burning, and she looks down to find that the vegetables in the stir fry are rather more caramelised around the edges than she intended. Damn - hopefully Malcolm won't notice that she's dreading this as much as he is.

They haven't been apart from one another since his return from his second journey to the encampment where he came so close to dying, and the thought of his being away from her, and from their daughter, is almost more than she wants to contemplate. Yes - they need to get answers about that figurehead, and the only way to do it is to go and find out where it was deposited - but not being able to go with him is tearing at her rather more than she expected. There's no place for her in the party; not when she has to run her own department, and someone's got to stay with Erin…God, is Maddy feeling like this? Mark's going, too…

Hell - now the stir fry's pretty much carbon, and even Malcolm can't miss the acrid smell of the burnt vegetables.

Rather than comment, he simply removes the pan from the hob, turns it off, and enfolds her in his spare arm. Small though she is, Erin can't miss the sense of worry in her parents, but being close to them both seems to be a comfort, as she quiets her grizzling and snuggles into her mother's shoulder.

"It'll be alright." He says, after a while, "I'm surrounded by people who know what they're doing, and who're committed to getting us out there and back again. It's not going to be like last time - and I'm not saying that to make myself believe it."

"Promise?" she asks, looking up into his eyes.

"Promise." He answers, claiming her lips for a kiss.

* * *

"Honestly, Commander," Elisabeth says, briskly, "I'm doing this for everyone - I can't see why you're making such a fuss about it."

"Come on, Doc," Taylor protests, "I've only just had a medical."

"And you're now going out to find something that resides in the middle of a source of radiation that could have God-knows-what effect on your physiology. I'm getting a whole battery of tests done for everyone who's going, so that I can monitor the effects once you all get back."

Elisabeth's expression is absolutely reasonable - but firm. Even if it weren't the prime opportunity to get that second medical she's been attempting to fit in, she'd be doing this anyway. So far everyone on the manifest has submitted to the same degree of scrutiny - but again it's Commander Taylor that's pulling up at that particular fence. As he always does it, his behaviour is hardly out of character, and in some ways she's hoping that it's a good sign.

"What exactly are you going to subject me to?" Taylor asks, his expression sceptical.

"The usual - but I'm also doing some deeper soft-tissue scans - liver, kidneys, brain. We don't know much about theta radiation in terms of how poisonous it is. _No_ radiation is safe - but some types are more dangerous than others, and I want a reference point before you go. You'll be getting the entire set again when you get back so I can check if anyone's been affected by it while they're out there."

"Malcolm's taking the full hazmat suits - and whatever doohickeys he uses these days to pick up radiation…" he's still trying, as he always does - but she knows his acquiescence is coming; as that always does, too.

Finally, he perches on the bio-bed, "Fair enough, Doc." He sighs, "Do your worst."

"It won't hurt a bit." She smiles, "To use a well-worn cliché."

Knowing the Commander as she does, she's told him exactly what she's going to do - even if not the _entire_ reason why. Medicals aren't usually performed prior to an OTG mission, but when has there been an OTG mission like this before? Even now, she is shocked that Weaver sent that retrieval team out into the Badlands to retrieve something that might be contaminated - and said nothing to them of the risks. But then, if that figurehead was indeed nowhere near any likely points that might collect radiation, maybe it wouldn't have occurred to him to do so.

At length, the test run is complete, and the results are downloading to the main infirmary record system, where she can peruse them later at her leisure, "There. Done."

"Is it me, or did that take longer than usual?" Taylor asks, suspiciously.

"It isn't you, Commander, because it did." She agrees as he gets up, "The standard medical doesn't include the degree of scanning I've undertaken for the expedition team. Like I said, given that it's the soft tissues that are often the most damaged by radiation, if I know what condition they're in before you go, I'll be able to detect any differences - and counter them - once you get back."

His expression is still a little odd as he nods - as though he doesn't _quite_ believe her; but he says nothing more about it, "Anything else to be done health-wise?"

"No, Commander - everyone's been checked, so if you're ready to go, then there's nothing to stop you." Actually, there's plenty to stop him - but she hasn't got the evidence she needs yet - not until she's checked the results. _I hope it's nothing_ …

Taylor nods, and departs. Returning to her desk, Elisabeth waits for a good ten minutes before risking his returning while she's examining his records, looking instead over those of the security team. His increasingly suspicious nature has not gone unnoticed, and she has no intention of adding fuel to _that_ particular fire.

It's as she's about to open up the file that the door bursts open, "Doctor Shannon - sorry, we've got an emergency coming in, one of the tree-surgeons slipped from a branch while his chainsaw was still going." Nurse Ogawa's expression is worried, which suggests at best a severed artery, at worst a full amputation. Without hesitation, she shuts down her files and leaves the office. Taylor's medical records will have to wait.

* * *

"He's been very thorough. There's no denying it." Taylor muses as he goes over the staff manifest yet again, "Not that I want Mira anywhere near this."

Washington looks over his shoulder at the list on his plex, "At least if she's there, you can keep an eye on her. If she's not in the colony, she can't cause any trouble."

He growls slightly, "I wish I could leave her here - but you're right, Wash. I don't want to make her Jim Shannon's problem. If she's starting something, then she can't do it from the Badlands. Besides, if she gets troublesome, she can stay out there."

"Isn't that a bit much, Sir?" she asks, placatingly, "Mira's trouble - I get it, you get it - but she's survived out there, and what's to say she won't make it back? If she does, then you've got twice the problem - because she's back in the colony, and she's pissed at you."

And again, it's like she's reading his mind. Just like she always has.

"Where would I be without you, huh?" he grins at her, a little lopsidedly, "Sometimes I wonder who runs this Colony - me or you."

"I'd go for both of us, Sir." She smiles, resting an arm on his shoulder. Resuming his perusal of his plex, it never occurs to him that he can't feel the pressure of it there.

"God, it's getting toxic in this place." He sighs, "I can't wait to get out of here for a while. I'm putting you in charge of security, by the way. Dunham's not got your experience."

"Yes, Commander." She agrees, "He's good, and he's got what it takes to step into Guzman's shoes when he retires - but he's never been in charge out there. I won't let you down."

"You never have." He agrees, "I'll see you out there tomorrow morning. 08:00 sharp."

"Yes Sir."

* * *

The atmosphere at the breakfast table is rather sombre, as Maddy gives Elisabeth Rose her breakfast - being weaned now, it's a mixture of mashed fruit and soya yoghurt that is very popular with the diner, though less so for Maddy given the amount of staining it always seems to transfer to her daughter's bibs.

She doesn't protest at her husband's departure - after all, he's a soldier, and this is part of his job - but nonetheless, she wishes fervently that he wasn't going. He's been OTG six times in the last year, of course, but only as part of patrols checking the outposts - this is another matter entirely.

"Hey." Mark smiles, sitting down beside her at the table, "I've been out there before, haven't I? I survived that - and there were only the four of us and one rhino. This trip's got so many people going that we need three rhinos just to carry the supplies."

"I know." She agrees, "It's just…"

Her voice trails off - but he doesn't need to ask for more details - he understands. He's going to be out of range of any communications for the next few weeks. Once they get past the limits of their communications relays, which will take them less than two days, they won't be able to call for help if they need it. And that's the one thing that scares Maddy the most.

"We've got Commander Taylor in charge - and he lived on his own on this planet for weeks until the rest of the pilgrims showed up. Mira's coming too - and she lived out there for nearly two years. Between them, they'll look after us."

Maddy makes herself smile at him, "I know. I should know better, too - it's your job to do this, and if it protects us all, then it's the right thing to do."

He nods. Maddy knows nothing of the figurehead - so she doesn't know why they're going out there. She probably has her suspicions, as most do, but the full details are unknown to her. He's going not just because it's his job - but because he _does_ know why they're going. He and Dunham unwrapped that thing when they first discovered it, after all. It doesn't help that he's been sworn to secrecy about it all; Maddy is hardly the town gossip - but nonetheless, the only people who know about it are the Senior staff and those who have been drafted in to add their expertise to the investigation. He's well aware that the primary reason that he, Dunham and the small security detail form the majority of the party is to ensure that Malcolm, Bram and that wood expert come back with results. And alive. Not necessarily in that order.

Their breakfast eaten, Maddy accompanies her husband to the marketplace, where the vehicles have been parked up and the expedition is assembling. Bram and Malcolm are in the process of checking the inventories of the three rhinos to ensure that they've got everything, while Taylor is checking names off the staff manifest. He has a security team of eight, a nurse, two scientists, and a woodworker to look after.

"Dunham," he calls, "Have the troops fall in."

"Sir."

To be fair, he's put a good team together; Reynolds, of course - the two are practically joined at the hip; while the rest are a good balance of discipline and skill, "Lynott, Savage, Wicks, Travers, Edison." He says, to prompt a response as though calling a school register, then he pauses, as he sees a name that is - suddenly - not expected at all.

Awaiting the call of his name, Carter looks bemused. He's been accepted wholly and utterly into the Security detail - and is no longer used to that air of suspicion that he had to carry around with him when he first got back from the Badlands. While Mira is the expert in survival out there, he's no slouch himself, which is why Dunham picked him. It seems, though, that Taylor is not so keen.

"Carter." Taylor says, eventually.

"Sir." He tries, rather well, to conceal the sullenness that is suddenly emerging at the implied insult. Fortunately, he notices Dunham's equal look of bemusement at the sudden shift in atmosphere. It looks like it's only Taylor with the problem, then.

"You're in charge while we're gone, Shannon." Taylor calls across to Jim, who is standing with Elisabeth, "This place'd better be standing when we get back."

"I'll make sure it is." He grins back, "Well mostly."

Taylor's chuckle at his joke is a relief - perhaps he's okay after all. Now is - of course - not the best time for him to be heading out of the Colony, not while they've got some disaffected colonists to deal with; but if Malcolm's calculations are right, it looks like they're on a deadline, so it's now or never.

* * *

"You done, Malcolm?" Taylor calls.

"Yes, Commander - we're ready to go." He hands his plex to Bram, and crosses to where Yseult is standing, with Erin in her arms, joined in motherly solidarity by Maddy, "I'll be back as soon as I can."

"I know." Yseult smiles at him. There's no need for expansive goodbyes - that was all done before they left the house, in the midst of intense lovemaking in the incoming light of the dawn, "Be careful."

"Always." He kisses her gently, "I'll be thinking of you every night."

The two mothers watch as their husbands return to the general throng and board the various vehicles that will carry them out beyond the borders of their colony - and the borders of their ability to communicate. While both men came back from their travels - and travails - out there, neither Maddy nor Yseult want them to return to that hostile place. There is, after all, no guarantee that they'll be safe a second time.

"All done, Commander." Dunham says as Taylor clambers into the rover he's driving solo, "I'll see you when we make camp this evening."

"I've always liked how earnest he is." Washington says from the passenger seat as Taylor starts up the engine, "He's a good soldier."

"That he is, Wash." He agrees, "that he is."

* * *

Watching as the gate lowers in the dusty wake of the convoy, Jim sighs. With no idea how long the Commander is going to be away, keeping the Colony together is one thing - but keeping a lid on the politics is a much bigger ask. He turns back to the marketplace, where people are putting up the stalls they had to dismantle to accommodate the vehicles, and watches as Maddy and Yseult head across to Boylan's for a commiseration coffee or two. It all seems so peaceful; so tranquil.

Hopefully he can keep it that way.

* * *

Seeing her mood, Pete doesn't make one of his usual pithy comments, but instead offers her a cup of tea, "Fancy dinner at ours tonight?"

Yseult smiles a rather watery smile, "That's sweet of you - but Maddy and I are going to spend this evening blubbering over a casserole, followed by consoling ourselves by complaining about our husbands' collective foibles, further followed by more blubbering over dessert. The sooner we get it out of our systems, the sooner we can get on with things."

"Sounds lovely." He smiles, "The offer's open, though. You and Erin are always welcome."

"Be careful what you wish for, Pete. If you're not careful, you and Louis'll be sick of the sight of us."

He sits down, "I don't know about you - you've got a good reason to wish they weren't gone - but things are hardly fine and dandy here. The rumour machine's going into overdrive."

"What's happening?" At once, Yseult sits down as well, her expression now intent.

"When the news that Taylor was going OTG got out; well, let's just say that some quarters are looking to take advantage. No names, I'm afraid - Louis is a great eavesdropper, but he's not telepathic."

"It's okay - we've got that far." Yseult confirms, "God - this is all we need. Taylor's engaged elsewhere, and it's an opportunity to do something insane that'll wreck the Colony in his absence."

"When the cat's away?"

"Definitely. I'll let Jim know - he's in charge while Taylor's OTG. We can have a pow-wow and see if we can get in and pull this up before it goes out of control"

Pete's expression is doubtful, "If this is a possible takeover scenario, Max," He warns, "Then the only thing that's going to stop it is Taylor coming back. And that might not be enough." He stares at her expression, "God, I was just painting worst case scenario. Is it really that bad?"

"I don't know." She admits, quietly, "From what we've seen, though - it may well be that bad."

"And Taylor knows about this?"

"Yes - but he's not overly concerned. He can't be if he's leading this expedition."

"Then why haven't you stopped him from going?"

"Stop Commander Taylor from doing something, Pete?" She asks, "That's a 'no chance in hell' thing. Logic has been known to step in - but this involves the Phoenix group - and he'll never let that go unmet."

"What - them again? Are they back?"

"No, just legacy issues that we need to investigate."

"Presumably of a science-y nature, given that your hubby's on the team."

She nods.

"Max," Pete rests his hands on her shoulders, "Whatever it is - and I'm not asking you to tell me - just remember that we've all got your back. Whatever's going on with the Agri-teams, we're not in on it, and we aren't going to join up with it. Given that they're so careless around Louis tells me that they either think we will be - or they don't take us any more seriously than the occupation force did. If it gets to the point where people are picking sides - you can count on us to pick yours."

"I'm hoping it won't come to that, Pete." Yseult sighs, "But thanks."

* * *

While she's glad not to be in an empty house, it still feels odd to Maddy to be in a house that has a couple living in it - but only one member of that couple resident. God, if Max is missing Malcolm as much as she's missing Mark, tonight is likely to be liberally scattered with tissues. And their husbands haven't even been gone a day yet.

Elisabeth Rose and Erin are already busily engaged in some form of scenario that requires careful assembly of plastic blocks, that are wobbly enough to fall of their own accord - or at least they would if the girls didn't keep knocking them over, giggling and starting again. At the moment, they're oblivious to the fact that their fathers are not present. In time, however, she knows that Elisabeth Rose will be crying for Daddy, and there's no doubt that Erin will be doing the same. Mark dotes on his daughter, and the two have a special bond, so it's just a matter of time before the meltdown arrives. From the look on Max's face - a similar outcome with Erin is expected, too.

"This is ridiculous, isn't it?" she says, as they sit down at the dinner table with their meals, "I thought I was more collected than this."

"Me too," Yseult agrees, "But then, I was a hideous teary mess the first time I had an argument with Malcolm - and I thought that I was more collected than that then, as well. At least people are less freaked out when we do it - one of the weird things about being a woman. We think we shouldn't - but no one's surprised when we do."

"I think men get around it by losing their tempers all the time."

"I just wish Erin was old enough for me to explain it to her." Yseult says, looking across at her daughter, "At the moment, if she wants her daddy, and he's not here, then he's gone - and I can't tell her that he'll be back very soon, because he won't be. We're looking at about six weeks - possibly more. How do you explain that to someone who isn't quite a toddler yet?"

"I wish I knew." Maddy agrees, "I hope you don't mind having me as a mope-buddy. It's going to be tough."

"Don't I know it." Yseult sighs, "If you're happy to put up with my explosions of tears, then I'll be happy to put up with yours."

"Deal?"

"Deal."

* * *

Elisabeth is still at her desk when Jim comes in search of her. Not that he's surprised - they've had a flurry of accidents over the last day or so - nothing major, unlike that nasty one with the tree surgeon, but nonetheless, it's kept her from the work she's been intent on doing from the moment she got the chance to get Taylor back on a bio-bed.

"Anything?" he asks.

"Nothing yet." She admits, "His bloodwork is looking normal, though given what he was exposed to when he first got here, there are all sorts of things going on in there which have always been there, that I know of, and haven't been symptomatic - it's just the way that it is with him. I've looked at his liver results, and his kidneys - all fine, so I'm just about to move on to his brain scan.

"Sounds riveting."

She laughs, "I should be home later; you know the drill with Zoe."

He does now - though he cringes inside at the disastrous attempts to do so when he first got here, thanks to two years in Golad, "I know. Dinner, homework, bath, bed."

It's as he's opening the door that she calls him, "Jim - come and take a look at this."

He does as bid, but stares at the screen in bemusement, "What am I supposed to be looking at?"

Her expression is unnervingly grim, "Look at this," she points at the image, "This shouldn't be present - there are lesions here, and here. It looks like Taylor's experiencing some dieback of neurons in his cerebral cortex."

"And that means what?"

"Nothing good, I'm afraid. It explains why he's talking to himself - we're looking at a neurodegenerative disorder of some kind."

Jim looks blank.

"I think we might have been right when we were making comments about senility - if this is anything to go by, then there's something seriously wrong. Based on observed behaviours, it's possible that the Commander might have the first stages of Alzheimer's disease."

Now he gets it, and his eyes widen, "God no - are you sure?"

"Not entirely," she admits, "I'll have to do more work to be absolutely certain - without seeing more data, I can't give you any suggestion as to how quickly it's happening, or what's causing it."

"Can you cure it?" he asks, at once. God - he remembers asking Malcolm exactly the same thing about that amnesia virus.

"Without having the Commander here - I haven't the first idea."

"They should be at Outpost eight by now - that was where they were going to stop overnight."

"Definitely. I need to do more tests. It might be something we can stop - but if it isn't, he's leading a team out into the Badlands, and he's compromised." Her voice has gone much quieter now, for fear of being overheard.

"I'll call him." Jim promises.

* * *

Malcolm is most uncomfortable. The last time he was here, he was pitched into a hideous experience from which it took him at least a year to recover. Unfortunately, Outpost eight is the most convenient for the journey they are undertaking, but this time he is not alone with a man who wants him dead - far from it. Nonetheless, he has taken great care to find a bunk somewhere else this time around.

Bram is busy bringing Charlie up to date on the non-wood-related parts of their investigation. Most of it's going over her head, of course, but she listens intently, and seems largely to be taking it in at a basic level. To his much less oblivious eye, it's clear that they've really hit it off. Unless they get fed up with each other thanks to endless proximity over the next few weeks, it's quite likely that they'll be an item by the time they get back. Across the way, Paula Simpson, the nurse who has come with them, is strapping up Jane Lynott's ankle after she turned it on a stone outside.

No one's been here since he came here with Rob Stanley a year ago, though patrols have visited and stocked up the storage lockers with supplies in anticipation of the place being pressed back into service, so they're making use of those rather than breaking out the rations. Not the best of meals, perhaps, but they've got to get used to it - it'll be like this now until they get back to the Colony.

He looks across to where Mira is busy with Carter, carefully cleaning something that he can't recognise. Intrigued, he gets up to join them, "What's that? A navigational device of some kind?"

She nods, "It's a pocket sextant. That, a compass and my chronometer should keep us on track once we're beyond the beacons. Those topographic charts have helped."

"Thanks for stealing them." He says, with a mild smile, though it's clear to them all that he's still a bit wary of her.

"Thanks for busting into them." She answers, looking up from her work and startling the hell out of him by returning it.

* * *

"Is everyone bedded down?" Taylor asks as he sits in the main laboratory, reading through his inventory yet again.

"They are." Washington confirms, sitting down opposite him, on a sprung-mechanism chair that does not yield to her weight.

 _Terra Nova calling Outpost Eight. Come in._

He turns, "It's Shannon. What's he want?"

 _Terra Nova calling Outpost Eight. Taylor, are you there? Come in please._

"And you've only been gone eight hours." Washington grins, "It's probably nothing. He'll work it out himself. He's pretty damn clever; most of the time."

Taylor laughs at her joke, "Hell yeah - he's probably got some weepy message from Max or Maddy. It can wait until we get back."

She nods, "Don't worry about it. I don't know about you - but I think it's time to hit the hay."

 _Terra Nova calling Outpost Eight. Taylor, I know you're there. Pick up._

 _Terra Nova calling Outpost Eight. Come in._

Grinning, he gets up as she does, again without seeing that the chair neither rises, nor moves, "Good idea. Long day tomorrow." Yawning, he follows her out.


	10. Into the Desert

**PART TWO**

 **Expedition**

Chapter Ten

 _Into the Desert_

Elisabeth looks over the results again, "It's unmistakeable, Jim." Her voice is low, "Whatever the cause, the Commander's behaviour is being caused by a degenerative brain disorder. Curing it is going to be next to impossible - unless it's something that I have the wherewithal to combat. If it's Alzheimer's, though - there's nothing I can do."

Jim is pacing back and forth, "I couldn't get hold of him at the Outpost. If he's having one of those episodes, then that explains why he didn't respond; I'll keep trying - until I can get someone else."

"At this time of night?"

He stops pacing, "I know…I know. Perhaps they'll assemble somewhere and he can't ignore it if they're all hearing it. Maybe tomorrow morning."

"I need time, Jim. There's every chance that this is down to a pathogen of some sort - but without knowing it, I can't give you any advice on what we can expect in terms of a potential recovery. Besides, my concern is that Malcolm doesn't know - and he's got to deal with an expedition leader who has a degenerative neurological disorder. One who's taking them out into a deadly environment."

"He's got Mira to turn to. She can keep them alive even if the Commander's not thinking straight. My worry right now is what we do here. We can't let this get out - it has to stay quiet. We tell Max, but no one else. If our Jack Cade guy knows that Taylor's losing it, then we're screwed."

"Not necessarily," Elisabeth looks up at him again, "You're fully respected as the Commander's deputy."

"Maybe so, but I don't have Taylor's mystique, do I? Whatever life throws at us, Taylor leads us against it. I don't have even half of his knowledge - and people know it. We need to keep people thinking that he'll be coming back at the end of this and he'll kick the ass of anyone who tries to take over."

"And we're convinced that someone will?"

"If the letters aren't screwing us around, then yes."

She sighs, and returns to her plex again, "Hang on…"

"What?" Jim hurries round to stand behind her, though he can't work out the meaning of the words on the screen.

"It's a pathogen, Jim." Elisabeth squints at the notes, "I don't believe it - I can't believe I missed it."

"What?" he tries again.

"When I carried out the medical on the Commander a few months ago, I noticed he had a lump on his leg - an insect bite. But I don't think it was - I think it must've been a _tick_ bite. I was dealing with a few of those at the time and I treated them as such. But not that one - he assumed it was just another insect, and I didn't think to investigate it."

"Still not getting it."

Elisabeth looks up at him, "One of the reasons why I treated the tick bites was because ticks can carry Lyme's disease. Even though we're so far back in the past, it doesn't mean that they don't do the same thing here, so I still treat for it. The species in the future transmit a version of the disease that causes a huge range of symptoms that often get missed because they resemble something else - but what if this version goes straight to the degenerative impact?"

"Yeah that's great news - but it doesn't answer the big question. Can you cure this?"

"I can stop the infection, yes - and the brain's capacity to re-route itself around damage is well known. If we can get the Commander back here, and I can eradicate the pathogen, then he'll largely recover himself. But only if we get him back before the damage goes too far."

"And how long will it take to get 'too far', Elisabeth?"

"I can't begin to guess, Jim - but given how long he's already been symptomatic, if we don't get him back within the next few weeks, we could well be too late. He _has_ to postpone the expedition and come back to the Colony."

"Except we can't get in touch with him to get him back - and if he's still having an episode, what're the chances of him coming anyway?"

She sighs, "I have no idea."

* * *

Despite his misgivings about her, Taylor has no choice but to put Mira in charge of navigation, as she's the only one with the wherewithal to do it now that they're beyond the last of the beacons. She did it the last time using carefully planted desert shrubs - but they're not going to the encampment this time, so it's up to her to show them the way.

"What I wouldn't give for a working GPS." He grouches.

Beside him, in the passenger seat, Washington laughs, "She's got no reason to betray us, Commander. If she takes us off course, then she dies with us. That's never been her motive - she wants to keep the colony intact."

"If you say so."

Ahead of them is Malcolm's perennially overloaded rover, as he is driving while Mira guides the party through territory that only she has previously traversed. Never having seen the shrub road, he is unaware of it, and instead listens to her as she gives him advice on which line to take across the terrain, "Be careful; there are soft patches that can catch a wheel and rip out your axles. As long as you take it slowly, I'll have time to spot them."

"The Commander'll hate that."

"Not half as much as he'll hate a load of disabled vehicles."

Despite his nerves, and the attention he is obliged to keep on the route ahead of them, Malcolm is still able to look out of the windscreen of the rover and take in their surroundings. The last time, he was stuck in a rhino, and asleep from sheer exhaustion, so he missed it.

The semi-arid land stretches before them in a wide vista of reds, oranges and glistening whites that contrast magnificently with the crystal blue of the sky. The extremities of weather in the region is vividly evidenced in the deep gouges in the ground, created by rushing waters in the midst of flash flooding, the strata of the rock through which the water has carved on open display. Off in the distance he can see monstrous protrusions of rock, rising from the flat ground like lonely towers. Bulbous castles of solitude that rise from the emptiness below, to the emptiness above. In the midst of his torment in the encampment, he had never noticed that the land is - in fact - quite beautiful.

The sound of a horn hooting behind them prompts him to pull up, though he is bemused at the call for a halt and frowns, noting as he does so that Mira seems as surprised as he is. They've only been going for two hours.

"Is there a problem, Commander?" Malcolm asks as he emerges from his rover to see Taylor doing the same.

"Where are you taking us, Mira?" He asks, almost hostile in his tone. More members of the expedition are emerging from their vehicles now, too; surprised not only at the halt, but also the sense of confrontation in the atmosphere.

"We're going heading to the coordinates where the figurehead was found, Commander," Malcolm reminds him, surprised at the question - they'd agreed this before they left the outpost, "It's not in the same direction as the road to the encampment."

For a moment, he thinks Taylor's going to argue, but instead he frowns briefly, "So we did. Break out some water, people; we take a break. Twenty minutes."

Malcolm shrugs and reaches into one of the panniers for a bottle of water, but Mira continues to watch the Commander as he fetches out a bottle of his own. There's something going on that no one's told her about - something that is making her wary. Very wary.

He's compromised. How, she can't be sure - but he is. And he's leading them into a desert.

* * *

Jim checks his agenda, a little nervously. It's not the first time he's had to do this, admittedly, but it _is_ the first time he's had to do it for longer than a day or so. The fact that there are only three people at the table instead of the usual five doesn't help; a nerve-wracking demonstration of how on his own he really is.

Yseult looks across at the Shannons; her eyes a little puffy. It couldn't be clearer that she's had a bit of a cry because she misses Malcolm so much - but it's equally clear that she's allowed herself a bit of a flake-out, and has now set it aside and got herself back to business again. What Jim has to tell her, however, is likely to freak her all over again, and he feels rather uncomfortable as he prepares himself to ask Elisabeth to explain the situation.

"We've found out what's happening to the Commander, Max." He says, a little tiredly, "But I couldn't get in touch with him to call him back to the Colony. It looks like he's getting worse, and he's ignoring my calls."

"What's wrong with him?" Yseult demands at once, immediately worried for Malcolm - something that's a bit inevitable given what happened to him the last time he was in the Badlands.

Elisabeth steps in, "It's looking likely to be something akin to Lyme's disease, Max - albeit a Cretaceous version of it. The likely culprit was a bite he had on his leg when I was examining him in his last routine medical. He dismissed it as a general insect bite - and I'm afraid I did, too. It was only a few days afterwards that people started reporting tick bites, and I didn't make the connection."

Yseult looks a little blank, clearly not understanding the implications.

"The thing is, Max," Elisabeth continues, "One of the later symptoms of Holocene Lyme's disease includes neuropsychological deterioration, akin to forms of dementia - but there are lots of other ones, too that the Commander wasn't displaying, so it may be that the Cretaceous species of pathogen merely goes straight for the degenerative disease, and doesn't pass go or collect £200. He's experienced a die-back of the neurons in his cerebral cortex, which is almost certainly the cause of his conversations with the empty air. It's likely that he's seeing someone - and I think it's quite likely that it's someone he remembers very well, but can't remember isn't here anymore."

"Ayani?" Jim suggests.

"I wish it was, Jim." Elisabeth sighs, "But from the nature of the conversations, I'd put even money on it being Alicia Washington. That would explain why he was so intent that he had someone looking into the problem, but never had any reports back as to what they were discovering."

"And why he's been looking at us as though we weren't his proper senior staff." Jim finishes, "Well, you and me."

"And me," Yseult agrees, "Until after the occupation, we had no real relevance to the Colony, so he didn't really think about us until the point where we suddenly _did_ become relevant. The only person who would have been on his senior staff before you came here would've been Malcolm."

"Which means that, if he's like this out in the badlands, there's every chance that he'll continue to trust Malcolm even if he loses any trust for Mira." Elisabeth suggests, "Which means that he's safe for the time being."

"But is he?" Yseult asks, looking worried now, "Given that the Commander's regaining his hostility to Mira, what if he starts to think that Malcolm's collaborating with her? Malcolm has no idea just how badly the Commander's compromised - and he's hardly an expert on the nuances of human behaviour. He knows what we knew yesterday, and we've got no way to tell him that he needs to watch what he says and how he behaves around the Commander."

"And he's more than capable of talking himself into a tight spot?" Jim finishes.

"I've said before that I'm not blind to his faults." She sighs, "Yes, I'm worried he could do exactly that."

"Aren't we being a bit ahead of ourselves here?" Elisabeth asks, "It's not like it's just Malcolm, Mira and the Commander; Paula's looking after them, Dunham's got a good head on his shoulders, and Mark's out there as well. Bram's incredibly perceptive, far more than Malcolm could ever be, and even if Malcolm misses it, he's hardly hostile to Mira anymore. I think we should put a bit of trust in them all to catch on to what's happening, and put some processes in place here while they're gone."

"Processes?" Yseult asks.

Jim nods, reaching for his plex, "I'm going to get Chris in here, as we don't have Malcolm for him to report to. As Raj reports to you, Max, that can continue, and I'll have Guzman in here as well, as he's looking after my patrolling while I'm in here."

"That sounds wise." She agrees. They need to have people in to replace the missing faces - if nothing else it calms the rumours of ivory towers and elites if they have people from lower down the chain of command stepping into the senior staff meetings. It's not as good as instituting an elected council, of course - but it's at least a gesture in the right direction.

"I'll send formal requests out and organise a proper meeting for the next few days," Jim advises, "Until we do that, there's not a lot more we can do, so I think it's best if I get out there and have a word with Chris and Guzman."

"Do you mind if I approach Raj?" Yseult asks, "I'd prefer it if he could join us here as well, as there's a lot of things going on in his department that I don't really understand. Besides, it looks good if the next step down from both departments get called in." She pauses, "I wouldn't suggest telling either of them about the Commander, though. As far as they're concerned, we're looking to them to help shoulder the burden of running the colony while the Commander's OTG."

Jim and Elisabeth exchange a glance, "That's alright with me." She confirms.

"Sounds good to me, too." Jim agrees, "It might get our political people thinking that perhaps it might not be so bad after all."

He doesn't sound like he's convinced - but then, none of them are. Not really. Of all the times for this to happen - even if Taylor wasn't compromised, he's not present, and that presence is almost a charmed existence in its own right.

"Can we do this?" Yseult asks, worriedly, "Seriously? Stave off a revolt while we're missing the most useful element to prevent one?"

"It may not come to that." Elisabeth says, "As long as we can get them back in time for me to assess the Commander properly, no one needs to know that he's compromised, or that there's something that might take him away from us. If I can clear up the problem, then it's a moot point anyway. The priority has to be making sure that rumours about the Commander's condition don't get out."

"As long as we're the only ones who've noticed, Elisabeth." Jim reminds her, "If anyone else heard him talking to himself, then there's no way we can keep a lid on it."

"I'll ask Pete to put Louis on the case. He's still tapped into the Terra Nova Grapevine - so if there are rumours doing the rounds, then he'll pick up on it."

They exchange more glances - but there isn't much else that they can say.

* * *

"I don't like not being in front." Taylor growls, as he guides his rover along in Malcolm's wake, "I prefer it if I know where we're going."

The sun is coming in through the windscreen with increasing strength as the day warms ever more, capturing the interior in reflections that mildly obscure his view. But not to the extent that he notices that the seat next to him is empty.

"It's not like we have a choice, Commander." Washington says, "I can't navigate as well as Mira can, and she's got the knowledge. We haven't got a choice; we have to follow her. Don't worry - if there's a problem, Malcolm will let us know."

"Assuming he spots it." The Commander says, and smiles as she snorts with laughter: Malcolm is, after all, hardly known for his perceptiveness of human behaviour.

"He's better than he used to be," she concedes, "but I don't know how he feels about her these days; not after what her men did to him."

He nods, oblivious to the fact that she can't possibly know what Mira's men did to Malcolm, "Tell me about it."

Further ahead, Mira looks out at the increasingly arid landscape with a rather sour expression. She hasn't got to where she has by being credulous and trusting, and she knows that something's wrong with Taylor. His behaviour, stopping them without good reason and covering it by ordering a water break, reeks of a distrust that she thought he'd abandoned. God knows she's had to fight to earn what little trust he's granted her since she was obliged to return to the colony; but it seems to her that it's disappeared - and done so all-but overnight.

"What's wrong with Taylor, Malcolm?" she asks, suddenly.

Startled by her question, he fails to notice a small outcrop of rock and nearly loses control of the rover. Fighting to get it back on course again, he stutters briefly, "There's something wrong?"

"Well that confirms it." She says, in a matter-of-fact tone, "There's _definitely_ something wrong with Taylor."

"In what way?" His tone of voice does not suggest ignorance, more a wish to find out what she's noticed.

"I believe the colloquial term is 'when in hole, stop digging', Malcolm. The more you try to pretend he's fine, the more convinced I am that he isn't."

He sighs, "I don't know."

"Seriously?" her tone is immediately sceptical.

"By that, I mean that I haven't got an answer for you on it. I know that something's up - but what it is, God knows. Elisabeth hadn't found anything in his medicals."

"He's stopped trusting me." She says, then, "It couldn't have been more obvious when he started questioning my judgement on our route."

"Not necessarily," Malcolm replies, "It could be that he's being overprotective. You know as well as I do how important this place is to him - not to mention keeping us all safe and alive."

"And I've got form." Mira adds, darkly.

Malcolm looks a little uncomfortable, but does not answer. What, after all, can he say? It's a statement of fact.

Rather than take issue with his silence, instead she checks her chronometer, "We need to stop. Time for more water - and I need to take some readings."

"I won't argue with the suggestion of more water." Malcolm agrees. Given the appalling thirst he endured in the encampment, she is not remotely surprised at his agreement.

Their speed is not great, so the halt does not cause difficulties in the convoy. Rather than irk Taylor by clearly showing that Mira has made the decision to stop, Malcolm emerges from the rover first and makes something of a show of breaking out a bottle of water. If nothing else, the Commander will assume that he's done so out of mild fear of thirst, and view it tolerantly. To a fair degree, he is right.

"Great…stopping again." Taylor mutters, as though he was not the one who called the first halt.

"Give him a chance, Commander," Washington says, "We're going right out into the desert aren't we? Given that he nearly died the last time he came out here, it's inevitable."

"Fair enough." He growls, good naturedly as he steps out of the rover, "Can I get you some water?"

"Got some." She smiles, lifting a bottle and shaking it.

Everyone seems happy to take a break, sharing out water bottles and a few snacks as Mira stands apart from the gathering of vehicles and assembles her miniature sextant to take some readings. By the time she accepts the bottle that Malcolm has brought for her, she has the readings she requires, and returns to the rover to continue her calculations.

"Are we where we should be?"

She nods, "We should get to the spot where we found the figurehead tomorrow - I've got a spot in mind for us to camp tonight - it's reasonably defensible, so Dunham shouldn't have any trouble setting up a perimeter."

"Defensible?" Malcolm asks, a little nervously.

"Bambiraptors." She answers, "If we can't get underground - which we can't - it's the best place I can think of. High up, surrounded by walls on three sides. The most we need to do is block the entrance with the vehicles and some fencing."

"Is there anything bigger we need to worry about?"

Mira shakes her head, "Not out here. There's not enough water to support larger carnivores. The bambis can get by on a combination of waterholes and buitreraptor blood." She looks up at him, "They're worth bearing in mind for us, too. I've never tried a bambi - they're the size of a small car, so they're best driven off - but buitreraptors make quite good eating."

Malcolm looks distinctly nervous now, "Do you think we'll need to hunt them?"

"Only if you get seriously fed up with rations. They take a bit of skill to bring down: they're damned fast. But it's worth bearing it in mind."

They turn as Taylor crosses to join them, Dunham in tow, "Where are we stopping tonight?" This time, even Malcolm is unable to miss the obvious fact that he's addressing the Chief Science Officer, and not their essential guide.

He swallows, rather flustered, "Er…Mira suggests…"

"Mira." Taylor grunts. Beside him, Dunham looks rather surprised: she's standing right next to Malcolm.

He tries again, "Mira suggests a wide gully about ten miles on from here. It's got elevated platforms to keep us safe from predators - and we can block the entrance with only a small amount of fencing."

Taylor nods, but doesn't comment on that. Instead he turns, "Lets get going. Time's rolling on."

Frowning, Dunham follows in his wake, while Mira looks at Malcolm with a raised eyebrow, "This is going to be _such_ fun."

He sighs. Suddenly, he is much, much more nervous.

* * *

Chris looks worried, "I know that you're up to date on this - as much as I am; but there's definitely something going on in the Agricultural teams. No one's talking of course - but they're not doing half as good a job as they think they are. It's almost ridiculous - like they think that they'll be incarcerated in the Ministry of Love or something."

"Pardon?" Jim has no idea what he's talking about.

"Orwell - _Nineteen Eighty Four_?"

"Nope. Still not getting it."

"It's one of the three ministries - it's the one where people are interrogated and tortured by the state."

"Oh, come on." Jim looks cross, "Can they get any more stupid?"

Elisabeth sighs, "It _is_ a touch melodramatic, Chris. Are they really convinced that we're that bad?"

"Okay, so I'm pushing it a bit - but it certainly feels like it."

Sitting alongside Chris, Raj looks quite bemused, "Is it because there are so many of them?" he asks, "I haven't noticed anything like that in my teams - but it may be that they're hiding it too, and I haven't noticed."

"If they have - then they're doing a hell of a good job of it. Far better than my lot." Chris sighs, "It's weird - your teams are paid the same as mine, aren't they?"

"Of course they are - everyone's got their own expertise, and that gets recognised; but I don't know if my foundry-men realise that picking fruit is a hell of a lot more of a skill than people acknowledge. Even I know that you need to know what to look for, when to pick and when not to."

"Maybe that's part of the problem." Elisabeth muses, "People in the agri-teams think that people don't take their work seriously."

"How do we convince them otherwise?" Yseult asks, worriedly, "But then, what if they're right? Do we?"

Everyone looks at each other. It's certainly never a thought that has occurred to anyone.

"What about the Harvest Festival?" Jim asks, "Don't we give them all the convincing they need with that?"

"I never said that any of this was rational." Elisabeth sighs, "This could all be down to something as small as you passing Bob Parker over for promotion to Orchard Manager."

"He's certainly petty enough to take that far harder than he needed to." Chris admits, "The only time I ever put him in charge of something, he had the team working on the project while he sat back and directed. Apparently his job was to 'supervise', and that was it. That wasn't what I had in mind. It wasn't just because Pat had experience as an orchard manager in Ireland before he came here."

"This just gets better and better." Jim grouches.

"All we can do is keep going as we are, I think." Elisabeth says, "If you can get through to anyone in that central group, then perhaps we can talk to them and persuade them that we're all working towards the same goal; the safety of the colony."

"I can try." He says, doubtfully, "But I don't hold out a lot of hope. Bob's pretty strong willed, and he's very good at leading people on - he might not be able to walk the walk, but he's damn good at talking the talk."

"What was that you said about better and better, Jim?" Yseult sighs.

"Look - aren't we all overthinking this?" Raj asks, "We don't know what their agenda is, so the best we can do is just keep things going until the Commander gets back. Once that happens, this ought to settle back down again. He's always been the best stabilising influence on the colony. I know there's been graffiti and leafleting while he's been here - but the more they show themselves - the more likely they are to do something that'll show how stupid they're being. It's very hard to incite contented people to revolt, after all. I'll make sure people are reminded that I'm available to my teams so that they can come to me if there are any problems."

"I'll do the same." Chris agrees, "I imagine you don't need to, Max." He smiles at her.

"I'll do it anyway." She laughs, "If it's Colony-wide, your lot hopefully won't see it as something Orwellian."

"So - are we okay with it all, then?" Jim asks, hopefully, "If that's the case, perhaps we can get on with the rest of the meeting."

* * *

Zoe is busy with another story as Elisabeth makes dinner. She isn't sharing it yet - but from what Jim can establish, it's based on an historical event, and from the point of view of an unusual protagonist. That's the only guidance the class have been given - though her teacher is looking forward to what she produces far more than any other members of the class, as most of the time the stories that result tend to consist either of a rendition of whatever they're studying in history, told by the most famous person present, or of Taylor's arrival in Terra Nova - told by a dinosaur.

As the class are studying the Romans, so it's anticipated that Julius Caesar shall be stabbed to death in at least half the stories, witnessed by a random soldier, for choice. Zoe is herself aware of this, so her intention is to look for something entirely different.

"Dinner's nearly ready Zoe." Elisabeth calls across to her, "Could you wash your hands, please?"

"Yes Mom." She abandons the plex and disappears into the bathroom.

Intrigued, Jim sneaks a look at her work.

"Who's Wat Tyler?" he asks.

"Pardon?" Elisabeth looks up from the pan on the hob.

"Just the story that Zoe's writing - someone's talking about a guy called Wat Tyler."

"Really?" Her expression is surprised, "Why would her story be about that?"

"About what?" Jim asks again, a little frustrated at his lack of understanding.

"Are you reading my story, Dad?" Zoe is back, and looks a little embarrassed. So does Jim.

"Well, not exactly." He fumbles, "Just… Well - yes." Then he frowns, "What's it about?"

To his relief, she laughs, "It's not finished yet, Dad. But it's about the Peasants' Revolt. I'm telling it from the point of view of William Walworth, because he helped to save the King - and he's famous because he killed Wat Tyler."

"Isn't that a bit bloodthirsty?" Elisabeth asks in 'nervous mother' tones.

"Not really," Zoe says, blithely, as she seats herself at the dinner table, "Everyone else is doing Romans or Commander Taylor, and I thought it would be fun to try something different."

"Why the Peasants' Revolt, Zoe?" Jim asks. Surely it's a coincidence.

"Oh, it just seemed like a good idea." She answers, digging her fork into a portion of pie, "Lee Drummond says that his dad is going to kick out Commander Taylor, but he's always saying stuff like that, and it never happens. So I thought I'd write about something that did."

Fortunately, she doesn't notice the worried glances her parents share. To their daughter, it's just something to inspire a story. But, if even the kids are talking about it, then it seems that the danger is all too real.

And it's up to them to stop it.


	11. The Problem of Groupthink

Chapter Eleven

 _The Problem of Groupthink_

From a distance, the gully that Mira's suggesting doesn't look overly promising, and Taylor's already present distrust moves to outright refusal to cooperate, "What're you trying to pull, Mira?"

Malcolm looks startled: much as he is uncomfortable around the woman whose expertise is the key to their survival, he is willing to accept that her suggestion is valid. As she has already used the place and thus knows its suitability as a camp, it has not occurred to him to think otherwise.

Fortunately, despite her scowl, Mira doesn't respond with angry words, but instead forces herself to be reasonable, "Given what we're up against out here, Commander, it's either that or dig out a shelter underground. Given that we don't have time to do that before sundown, the only remaining option is to get everyone into the backs of the rhinos." Like _that's_ a valid alternative.

Taylor grunts, but he has no answer for her - largely because his own expertise tells him that she's right. This might be _terra incognit_ _a_ for him, but he's no stranger to surviving in hostile environments - and the only way to protect oneself is to get somewhere that a dinosaur can't. Thus he waves her on, not _quite_ dismissively, and - with an enormous degree of self control - Mira sets to work directing people into the chasm.

Once inside, however, her knowledge proves to be truly sound - as the narrow opening widens into a large space that is effectively impregnable. There is only one way in, and one way out. Once they've set up the fence lines, the larger predators won't be able to get near them. For all his lack of knowledge, even Malcolm recognises that it's a prime spot.

The walls of the chasm rise a good six metres above their heads; smooth, water-worn rock striped yellow, brown and orange as the sandstone strata have been exposed by centuries of erosion. Malcolm's no geologist, but he knows it's probable that this region was once under the sea - as it is one of many rocky protrusions all across the region that resemble the great limestone karsts of southern China and the South China Sea. Not that he ever visited them - by the time he could have found a reason to go, the air was too filthy to make them easy to see.

As he gazes about himself, taking in the geological wonders, Mira is busy with Dunham, organising the erection of shelters, the waste compactors, a water condenser to capture whatever forms overnight, and - of most interest to the hungry travellers - the cooking equipment. For reasons that he seems unwilling to share, Taylor is lurking near his rover; but most are too busy to take much notice.

Carter does not look happy to have been designated as the chef for the night, but one of his cronies, Hal Wicks, is helping him with the culinary marvel that is vacuum packed rations - and, before long, a cheerfully beefy aroma is scenting the air.

"Smells good, sir." Washington says, still seated in the rover and looking out beyond the entrance of the Gully, where Reynolds and Travers have just fired up an electric fence to dissuade any bambiraptors from inviting themselves to dinner.

"Not hungry." Taylor grunts, looking out at the walls in the rapidly fading light. Like all deserts, the light fades quickly here.

"You should eat something." She chides, her mouth creasing into a smile, "You're a nightmare to follow when you're hungry."

"She's got Carter making it."

"Ah." Now she understands, "I think, if he was still trying to assassinate you, he wouldn't be doing it with a cauldron of bully beef. Now, on the other hand, if it was _you_ doing the cooking…"

"Hey - I'm not _that_ bad."

"Really?" she asks, looking at him, eyebrow cocked, "I have less than fond memories of a night on the can thanks to your efforts."

"Okay - I _am_ that bad." He smiles at her, "Do you want me to get you some?"

She shakes her head, "No, I'm fine. I think I'll stay here and keep watch for a bit."

He nods, still smiling, and heads back to join the camp.

* * *

Sitting on a rock, scraping the last of the gravy from her plate, Mira watches Taylor as surreptitiously as she can. Whatever's happening, it's causing the Commander to make bad decisions. Firstly his near-refusal to use this place, and - more worryingly, - his apparent failure to notice that there's no one on watch at the entrance. The fence is all very well, but it's not unknown for those things to cut out at unexpected moments - and the last thing she wants is an unexpected wake up call with teeth.

The security team are gathered around a small outcrop of rock, which they're using as a card table, while Dunham looks rather concerned, as he can see that they're all there - and that means, as Mira has noticed, that there's no one on watch. That Taylor is completely happy with the lack of protection suggests that he doesn't realise that it's happening, or that he thinks that it is and has miscounted. To her, that means that something is _definitely_ wrong. Taylor misses nothing - she knows that from personal experience.

Malcolm is busy with a plex, while his assistant, and that wood expert, are making out again - though they're not being too obvious about it. The nurse is checking Lynott's ankle - and it all seems so peaceful. But there's still the problem of no one watching the fence.

She catches Dunham's eye, and he crosses to join her. Like most of the security teams, he's largely lost his wariness of her, and he seems to have guessed what she wants to know.

"Why isn't anyone watching the fence?" Mira asks, quietly, as he sits down beside her.

"Commander Taylor's got it in hand." He answers, though he sounds a little doubtful. If it's in hand, why is there no one there?

"I'll take first watch." She says, quietly, "Carter'll take second. You take third." She does not need to add that they don't advise Taylor that they're doing it.

Dunham immediately looks uncomfortable - to his mind, he's disobeying orders. She gets that - he's a hard working, dutiful and loyal soldier; so such a thing is anathema to him, "Sometimes you have to go off-book." She says, quietly, "I've been here before - after what we've eaten, there'll be bambis gathering for sure - and the only way they can get in is through that passageway. They'll smell the food, and they'll smell it when people visit the compactors. Better to be chewed out by Taylor than chewed up by a carnivore."

"Yes Ma'am." He shudders at the thought, and, in the process, forgets that Mira's not entitled to military deference.

Her eyes diamond hard, she slips away into the shadows to make her way past the parked vehicles to sit in the Commander's rover. It's the nearest viewing point to the fence - and it has at least a small degree of shelter should she find herself obliged to defend the opening. Sure enough, as soon as her night-vision is settled, she can see movement out there. At least one bambi, possibly as many as five. They might be the size of a small car each, but nonetheless, they're fast - and they hunt best in packs. Their skill in co-operating with one another is a fearsome example of where the ability to do so exhibited by later species came from: to her mind, only West African hunting dogs do it better.

That said, as long as the fence holds, they won't be able to get in. Their danger is their speed, not their ability to jump.

She is startled briefly by a scuffling sound, but looks relieved to find that it's not Taylor; it's Malcolm, "Why are you here? I thought Dunham was organising the perimeter."

"He was - until Taylor overruled him. Apparently he has it in hand."

Even in the dubious light, she can see that Malcolm has gone rather pale. He dithers for a moment, as though wrestling with his conscience in some way - but then he gets into the rover beside her, "You need to keep this to yourself Mira; but, when I said I didn't know what was wrong with the Commander, I wasn't telling you the full truth."

"I never guessed." She says, a little sarcastically.

"I don't know the cause - but there've been a few occasions when the Commander's been overheard talking to someone. Someone who isn't actually there."

"Pardon?" Of all the things she was expecting - that was probably the last on the list.

"Elisabeth couldn't pin down a cause for it, and it wasn't happening that often. Without a good reason to do it, we couldn't relieve him of command, so we had to try and get him back in for a medical. The expedition was just the excuse that we needed - but before we left, Elisabeth still hadn't found anything, so we had no choice but to come out here with him as he is."

"As he is?" she asks, "By that, I take it you mean 'completely compromised'?"

He looks dreadfully uncomfortable, "Possibly. There's no way to know. I know he's been doing it, because I saw him. Jim's overheard him a couple of times - but when I saw him, he was addressing the empty space in front of him as though there was someone there."

"And now he's leading us out into a desert." She finishes, tiredly.

Malcolm nods, and looks out at the fence line, "Yes. He is."

* * *

Chris is looking disgruntled, to say the least, as Jim approaches him. While he's technically in charge of the colony while Taylor's elsewhere, it doesn't stop him from undertaking his patrols. He just does them less often.

"What's up?" He asks, cheerfully, "worms in the apples?" He knows that's not the reason - but there are people busy amongst the rows of emerging vegetable seedlings, and the last thing he wants to do is draw attention to their ongoing attempts to keep a lid on the simmering discontent amongst the veg patches.

"Don't ask." Chris says, "One of those days." The two of them fall into step alongside one another, and make their way past one of the larger potting sheds to a spot where they can be reasonably sure they're not observed, "I've tried to institute staff meetings. I think Raj had more success with his - and I have no doubt that Max had no problem at all. But my teams are playing me about. If the Soft fruit teams can make a date, the Top Fruit teams can't. Then the planters have a heap of seedlings to extract from the hydroponics nurseries. It's like they're doing their damnedest to stop me from gathering them all together and telling them that we want to hear their concerns."

Jim nods: a staff meeting with an open-floor does rather spike the wheel of someone trying to get people to believe that their voices are going unheard.

"I can't impose one - not without setting people off claiming that I'm being authoritarian. I've attempted to compromise by meeting individual teams, but that just gives the impression that I'm trying a 'divide and rule' approach."

"Aren't you being a bit melodramatic?" Jim asks, "Even if it's one department at a time, the whole 'get it off your chest' principle still holds."

"Bob's got in there first, Jim." Chris says, quietly, "At least, that's what I'm beginning to think - every attempt I've made to get people talking seems to go nowhere, and I'm getting some open hostility now. I don't know what the hell's going on. It's not like any of these people are credulous morons - they're all intelligent, rational people. Or so I thought. It's like there's been a mass outbreak of groupthink."

Jim blinks, then looks a little embarrassed, "What's groupthink?" he's heard the term before - but never given it much thought.

"It's a social phenomenon, Jim. It's when a group of people start making bad decisions because they don't want to deviate from the group consensus. Bob's laid some foundations that are pressurising people to think that they won't be listened to if they talk to me - and now people don't feel comfortable challenging the concept."

"Hell - that does _not_ sound good."

"It's because there are so many people working here." Chris sighs, "Bob's damned articulate, and I think I've already said that he's got issues with authority. While he's moving in circles that are hardly short of intelligence, he can be pretty charismatic - and if he's captured enough attention, then that causes more and more people to agree with him, and suddenly arguing that he might not actually be right at all becomes largely impossible - because you're seen as 'an establishment shill' or words to that effect."

Jim sighs. It's clear that Chris is a hell of a lot more politically astute than he is - for him, it's always been about putting the bad guys away, and he's left the politicking to people with fewer scruples. That people can find something to complain about even here is baffling to him. The land is unforgiving, yes, but it's a hell of a lot better than the land they left. "Do I come across as a bit of a dumb-ass to you?" he asks, a little worriedly, "I hadn't picked upon any of that stuff."

"God, no." Chris shakes his head, "Everyone knows that you can be relied on to be fair and honest - and maybe that looks a bit simplistic in some quarters; but I thought we'd left all that political crap behind in the holocene. We don't need it here; but some people just can't seem to leave it alone."

"I don't do politics." He agrees, "I'm better at catching honest crooks."

Chris laughs at his joke, "I'll keep trying, Jim. If I can just persuade a few people that we're serious about listening to them, then that'll be a start."

Jim nods, and leaves him to get back to work. That's a lot of food for thought - and a word that he hadn't really ever taken account of before. Hopefully this groupthink thing won't catch on too much; given that he's only just found out what it really means, he's not in the best position to counter it.

* * *

Malcolm stifles a yawn as he clambers out of his sleeping bag. It's stupidly early, but he's not yet used to sleeping under canvas - and the uncomfortable knowledge that there was a pack of bambiraptors outside their perimeter last night has hardly been conducive to an easy trip to the land of nod.

He is surprised to find that Taylor has not emerged as he wanders back down to the entrance to the gully, though that is perhaps fortunate as Dunham is - dutifully - on watch, which is something that the Commander did not ask him to do. On the other hand, he is not surprised when Mira also turns up, though her gift of three mugs of steaming coffee substitute is welcome for the warmth - though not the taste.

"Anything?" she asks, as Dunham accepts his mug with thanks.

"The bambis wandered off about an hour ago." He reports, "Carter said when he handed over that they'd been sizing up the fence - but they didn't try it. We might be easy pickings in some ways - but not when it comes to actually getting at us."

She nods, "We'll have to keep a watch on them. It's a given that they'll follow us. We're too tempting - buitreraptors are a hell of a lot faster than we are."

Malcolm looks very nervous at that. Dunham, on the other had, just yawns and nods in agreement taking a sip of his drink.

"Go get the troops up." She says, "I'll take over."

"Yes Ma'am." Again, he seems content to accept her authority. Probably because she's the only one who can be absolutely relied upon to get them back alive.

As soon as he's gone, she sits back, "You're not going to like this, Malcolm."

He turns to her, "What do you mean?"

"If Taylor's compromised - and it's pretty damn clear to me that he is - then we need to start thinking how we get this expedition to where it needs to be without his input. And without him knowing that we're doing it."

"You can't be serious…" he's staring now. The concept of overruling the Commander an unthinkable obstacle.

"I am." Her gaze is firm, and he knows she's not kidding, "Look, I'm not interested in taking over, or any of that crap. What I want to do is get you safely to where you want to go, and then get us all safely back again. If we can't trust Taylor to do it, or at least do it effectively, then you and I have to do it instead. To all intents and purposes, he's superfluous to this expedition; Dunham's able to organise the security detail, you and your team can get on with the science, and Carter and I can do the survival planning. Whatever's going on with him - if we can't stop it, then we contain it, and do what we came out here to do."

Malcolm transfers his gaze back to that distance beyond the entrance, where the desert scrub spreads for miles. The chances of people agreeing to work behind Taylor's back are minimal at best - his aura of authority is so strong that no one would feel safe to challenge it, for fear of what their colleagues would think of them. It's been something that he's whinged about for as long as he can remember since he arrived - but even he finds the entire prospect horribly wrong. He has plenty of faults, yes - but he's never been one for treachery.

"I'm not very good at being surreptitious." He confesses, after a while.

"Then don't be. I'm brilliant at it - so I'll do it for both of us." Mira says, with an offhand air that makes him snort with amusement. Then she turns to him, "The one thing I do need from you, Malcolm, is trust. I can't do this if you don't trust me. Taylor's not safe to lead us if the evidence is to be believed, and we need to keep the party alive without him thinking that I'm trying to take over. I can only do that with your help."

He sits very still, all the conflicts in his mind over the woman beside him turning over and over as he processes her words. She's right - and he knows it: they can't survive out here without her knowledge and experience. Taylor's brilliant at survival; but he's compromised - he must be if he believed that there was someone on watch last night when there wasn't. For a moment, he hears the crack of electricity at the end of a shock prod, shivers at the remembrance of the dread in his mind as he waited for the next shock, unable to see when it could come. No - that wasn't her fault. Lucas had that done to him - she knew nothing about it…

She doesn't push him. She knows why he struggles to accept her. But eventually he looks up, and straight at her, "Yes. I'll trust you."

Mira nods, "Thank you. Just for the record - since we're talking about trust, I'll trust you in return. As long as the Commander isn't making decisions that actively endanger us, I'll keep myself to myself. If he does, though - there's no choice. We have to put the safety of the expedition first. But I'll defer to you - you're senior staff. I'm not."

"I agree with that." Malcolm says, "If he starts to put us in danger, then we put safety first."

He doesn't answer about the deferring bit - that's something he really doesn't want to think about.

Mira looks in the wing mirror, "Taylor's coming. Driver's side."

They have the rhino parked up behind the rover to give them cover, and they sneak away, unseen, as Taylor walks up to the fence line, then returns to the rover, "Anything?"

Washington shakes her head, "No. Just this filthy coffee crap." She raises a mug, and he catches the whiff of the stuff on the air.

"Yeah - I avoid that like the plague if I can." He laughs, leaning against the side of the vehicle, "Nothing outside the fence at all last night, then?"

"Not a thing." She answers, "All of Mira's talk about bambiraptors: if last night was anything to go by, we're more likely to see Bambi than bambis. There's nothing much out here for them to feed on anyway, so it's not like they're going to come out this far. We left our 'all you can eat buffet' status behind once the sand started and the grass stopped. Have you eaten?"

"What, are you my mother now?"

"Hey, you're driving, sir. I don't want you passing out at the wheel because your blood sugar's on the floor."

He laughs, "Fine, I'll get something. You want anything?"

"Already had some cereal bars. They were as bad as this coffee."

* * *

In spite of himself, Malcolm is relieved that his vehicle is at the head of the convoy, rather than Taylor's; as it makes it easier to conceal his involvement in the plan to essentially sideline the Commander. That they're doing it to keep themselves alive is neither here nor there - it still feels wrong; but then, if they keep talking themselves out of doing something about it because no one feels brave enough to challenge the norm, then they are far more responsible than Taylor if it all goes belly up.

"Do you expect to find the spot today?" he asks, more for the sake of filling the silence than because he genuinely wants to know.

"Possibly - but that's only because I know where I'm going this time around." Mira says, "If we do, it'll be this evening. We're still safe to travel in the middle of the day at the moment, as long as we stop for water every couple of hours or so. The last time, we had to get out of the sun for six hours a day, so it took much longer. Believe me, you don't want to be in a rover out here at that time of the year. I'm just glad the hot season's at least another month away."

Malcolm shudders. He remembers what it's like to be in an enclosed metal box in the midday heat - and he'd rather not think about it.

"Do you think Weaver knew anything about the portal that's out here?" he asks, to take his mind off it.

Mira shakes her head, "No. He wasn't as bright as he pretended to be - he just accepted what Lucas told him and relayed it back to the money-men. All he could do really well was be an utter bastard. The coordinates for the figurehead were given to him, and he gave them to us. I never did find out who it was that had them - though it was probably whoever paid for the UAVs. If they'd been able to control a second portal, it would've given them the one at Hope Plaza to send more pilgrims here, and another one to bring the resources back there, so no one would've known what they were doing. That was the main reason why they were searching. My guess is that the backers were getting twitchy about there not being a portal at all - and Weaver needed proof that there was one to keep them on side. The aerial surveys must've identified it, and that prompted them to investigate it."

"So they needed to overrun the Colony to get to that point." Malcolm muses, "No one at the other side needed to know that they were going through to what was more-or-less a prison camp - they could keep the pilgrims coming through, and that would give them a captive workforce."

"Too right." Mira agrees, a little bitterly, "All of you would've been corralled - and probably put to work in processing plants. Then they'd send more pilgrims through on the promise of a new life, and they'd've joined you. After all, it's billed as a one-way trip - so how would anyone be able to get back and warn people that they were effectively signing up to slavery?"

"Thank God we stopped them."

She nods, "I suspect that we would've been expected to become overseers or something. The chances of getting back if you weren't Weaver or Lucas Taylor are probably as close to zero as it gets. I pinned a lot of hope on getting back to see my daughter. Even if Shannon hadn't blown up Hope Plaza - somehow I think it's likely that I wouldn't have been able to do it. I would've been as trapped as you." She sighs; a sad, rather desolate sound. All of her hopes of being reunited with a precious child…and not even success in her mission would have been so rewarded. Being a parent himself now, he can feel a sense of her devastation - and that endless burden of not knowing, that she is now obliged to carry around with her for the rest of her days.

They continue in silence for nearly an hour, punctured now and again by Mira giving a course correction, until Malcolm decides to stop for a water-break. As people gather to fill their bottles from the water-tank in the second rhino, Taylor watches with a remarkably sullen air - as though the need to stop and drink is an almighty inconvenience. Either that, or he isn't happy that he wasn't the one that called it. Even to Mira, such behaviour is so resolutely un-Taylor, that it could not be clearer to her that he is no longer fit to lead them safely. It's a bloody nuisance that she can't call him out on it. Instead, she wanders back to talk to Dunham, who is supervising the rear guard, "Are we being followed?"

He nods, "They're about half a mile back - six of them. I've got Wicks and Travers watching them, and they've got our largest calibre sonic rifles trained on them."

"Have Savage, Carter and Reynolds join them, and you. Assign one bambi to each of them - two pairs of eyes aren't enough if there are six. They're bloody intelligent creatures, and they know when they're being watched. If they get within a quarter of a mile, call it. We get into the vehicles and go. There's too much rough ground here for a shootout - they won't run away with this much free meat nearby, and they've got cover to get behind."

"Are they really that smart?" Dunham asks, distinctly unnerved now.

"Speaking from personal experience?" Mira says, "Yes. They are."

* * *

With the threat of predators on their tail, Mira refuses to allow another stop for three hours, and picks up the pace as much as she feels is safe, "We've got bambis following us." She says, simply, when Malcolm questions her decision, "I want as much of a headstart as possible. They've seen how many of us there are - we're larger, and slower, than their usual prey. If there's a chance of a good feed, they'll keep at it until it becomes too much of a waste of their energy, or we kill them. I'd rather not do that - they're absolute bastards to bring down, and I don't want to waste the charge in the sonics. Our best bet is to get far enough ahead to set up a strong perimeter. There's nowhere to dig in where we're going."

Malcolm doesn't reply - but she doesn't need to look at him to know that he's distinctly unnerved by her comment.

They pause only to allow Mira to take another reading with her sextant, and resume as soon as she's worked out their position. By late afternoon, she seems satisfied, "We're as near as dammit, Malcolm. Give me a moment to call Dunham - I need to know how far back the bambis are before we call a halt."

It feels strange, not referring to the Commander - but he doesn't object. If Mira gives the all clear, he can persuade Taylor to make the same request to Dunham, and thus avoid giving the impression that they're acting without his input.

 _There's no sign of them, Ma'am,_ the Lieutenant's voice squawks through the comm unit, _I doubt they've given up - but they're far enough back for us to set up a stockade to keep them out while we make camp_

"He's got a good head on those shoulders." Mira observes, "Most people would assume that they'd gone."

Taylor makes no objection to their stopping place, as there's no cover for the best part of half a mile, so even if there are still bambiraptors in their wake, an ambush would be impossible. Oddly, he seems unconcerned that there may be predators in the vicinity, as though he has been assured that all is well by some unknown source. They are not to know that - essentially - he has been.

Mira equally shows no concern as he orders Dunham to organise a work detail to erect the stockade. As with the fence line, their protection consists of stout metal rods with emitters along their length to generate an electric field strong enough to cause serious damage to anything that attempts to cross it. Once they've constructed a large enough space to contain their camp, and the vehicles, Travers and Wicks set up a simple picket fence to keep everyone inside the stockade away from it, while everyone else pitches in to set up the rest of the camp.

"Was it here?" Malcolm asks, once he's finished setting up his tent.

Mira knows what he means, and doesn't ask for clarification, "Approximately. I couldn't give you the exact position - but I remember that outcrop over there with the cleft in it. I'd be okay to say that this was more or less the spot."

Rather than comment further, Malcolm heads back to one of the rhinos and burrows into it for a rad-meter, "I know that Weaver didn't give a stuff about sending you into a potentially contaminated area, but I do."

Taylor is standing with Mira when he returns, "Do you think there's radiation here?"

"Probably not - but it doesn't hurt to be safe. Based on the topographical charts we found in those files, we're nowhere near any potential impact sites for a superbolide; so we just need to know how it is that the figurehead got here given that there's no fuel to open a portal in the vicinity."

"Could it be random? Once we lost the terminus, the portal back from Hope Plaza dumped Shannon nearly two klicks from where we were."

"If it's being generated here - which seems the most likely explanation - then it's going to be tethered to its fuel source. The randomness comes in at the other end." Malcolm raises the device and takes a reading, "No - we're safe. There's nothing more than natural background radiation."

"Commander!" Reynolds calls across from the corner of their stockade where the waste compactors are being erected, "We've just found something!"

Intrigued, Taylor heads across, Malcolm and Mira in tow, to find that a small hole they've dug to house the base of the generator has unearthed a wooden box held closed by a rather corroded padlock. Crouching, Malcolm retrieves it, "It's heavy, Commander. I think there might be something inside it. If someone can get me a crowbar, or something like it, I can prise off this lock."

"Reynolds." Taylor says, prompting the sergeant to trot across to one of the rhinos in search of a suitable tool.

By the time he returns, Bram and Charlie have wandered across, and only those who have been tasked with watching for bambiraptors are still at their posts. There is a sense of age about that wooden case - and all are eager to know what's inside.

It doesn't take long to break into the box, as the wood is brittle and dried out after years under the sand. It has, however protected its contents remarkably well, and Malcolm reaches in to retrieve a large, heavy book bound with thick, tooled leather.

"Hell's bells." Bram whispers, "What is it?"

Rather than say he doesn't know yet, Malcolm instead carefully opens it, and finally comments, "We got it right. This is the ship's log of the _Polly Constance_. It must have been left here with the figurehead."

Everyone is exchanging nervous glances. Before this - that lone wooden woman had seemed a distant mystery with no human element to it. Now, however, that humanity has emerged in full force - the words of the men who sailed the ship whose prow she once decorated.

A story that might tell them how she got here.


	12. Survivors

Chapter One

 _Survivors_

The latest batch of iron is looking very good, and Ben's expression is bright, "I'll check some of the bloom when it's cool enough to handle, Max - hopefully this will convert to steel really well."

"That'd be good." Yseult agrees, "I've never been able to get a really decent amount of steel before. The most I was able to do was a few blades from that _tamahagane_ I managed to get a few years ago. Until we can produce it reliably, we'll be struggling to keep ourselves ahead of the rust for years to come."

"You need to get those scientists to work on formulating paint mixtures." He grins, then looks up to see Pete approaching, "He doesn't look too chuffed."

Yseult follows his gaze and notices that Pete is not wearing his habitual cheerful expression - far from it. Instead, he looks worried, "Max, can I have a word?"

Bemused, she nods, "Can I leave you with this, Ben?"

"Sure. We can't do much until I've buffed some of the bloom anyway. If I need you I'll give you a shout."

Following Pete into the office, Yseult puts the kettle on, "What's the problem?"

"If you don't hear it today from them, you'll hear the rumours. Word on the ground is that the Agricultural department's going to demand the right to form a union."

"What?" she stares, shocked, "I mean - I don't have an issue with people wanting to form unions - but what's the point of doing it here? The whole point of this place is to not repeat the mistakes of the past - that's why we have lines of reporting, so that people can make their feelings known."

"You might think that, Max," Pete says, heavily, "but there are a lot of people who don't: not now that we're on our own. Taylor's being revised from a father-figure into a dictator removed from the people he's governing. There are people who say possession is nine-tenths of the law, but I've always reckoned that perception is nine-tenths of the view. It doesn't matter what it is - it's what it looks like to other people that counts more often than not. The fact that Taylor hasn't changed is immaterial. If enough people can be convinced that it was never about paternalistic leadership from the front, then the whole 'we're slaves under the yoke of martial law' thing can start getting traction. And it is."

Yseult sits as well. Regardless of his ethos - Commander Taylor remains the soldier he's always been, and the number of soldiers under his command always gives that impression of military government. No one's ever questioned it before - things have been going well, so why should they? Yes, Malcolm is known for his griping about the lack of democracy and accountability, and in some ways he's right to do it; but with a community as small as this, the Taylor approach has been the most suitable. Perhaps that might not be the case anymore - but the worst possible way to do it is through some form of popular uprising. From what she's seen, the talk may be about representation of the masses - but the intention that's hiding behind it is entirely less benign.

"Is there any way we can get Taylor back to the Colony?" Pete asks, "He needs to be here to counter this."

She shakes her head, "No - they went out of comm range over a day ago. Their comm units right now are only able to reach each other - they can't get back to us here."

"Hell. This is the worst possible time for him to be OTG."

"Chances are that this is why they're doing it, Pete. The Commander's presence is usually the thing that keeps a lid on trouble - no one feels they can challenge him."

"And that's a problem in its own right, Max." Pete reminds her, "Taylor's many things - but he's not immortal. What're we going to do when the time comes and he dies? Fight amongst ourselves to find a new leader? If we're not careful, we might find that there's nothing left for the Commander to lead when he gets back - even a population this small can do a lot of damage to itself if we have a civil war."

"I know." Yseult sighs, "The worst thing is that, even though he has the authority to do it, Jim isn't going to risk igniting the powder keg by deploying the population of the barracks. He may not be the most politically astute person in the Colony, but he's full to the brim with good, old-fashioned common sense."

"Which is just as well - because doing that would be the one thing that really would send us all to hell. If the security teams start getting antsy in Taylor's absence, he's going to have to keep them under control as much as the agri-teams."

"Guzman won't let that happen - he's as committed to the safe future of this colony as the Commander is. Besides, if he thinks it might be something we'd have to do, he'd take it to Jim first. If nothing else, he respects the chain of command."

"Glad someone does." Pete grumps.

"I've got a lunch date with Maddy, Pete." Yseult assures him, "We're going to mope in Boylan's for an hour over how much we miss our husbands, so I'll manufacture a reason to speak to Jim while I'm there. He needs to know about this - and if I can do it without alerting people that we know, then it won't look like we're trying to oppress the freedom of the masses."

"God - I never thought I'd hear something like that here. So much for new starts."

"No accounting for human nature, Pete." She smiles, "The ethos may be new, but the mindsets trying to fit into it aren't. Even the most egalitarian of systems ends up devolving into 'us and them' sooner or later. The trick is recognising that and making sure that you've built that expectation into the system so that people don't find a reason to think like that. I don't think anyone's ever managed to get it right yet; not while people are content to leave the hard work of running a colony to someone else. When that happens, we need to make sure the 'someone else' is the right someone for the job. At the moment, it's the Commander."

"Maybe so - but he's been in charge, and unchallenged, from the off. Some people don't take well to that - it's hardly a democratic approach." Pete sighs, a little melodramatically, "Bloody politics."

"It needed to happen sooner or later, Pete. Like you said, we're going to have to establish some succession arrangements to keep this Colony going in a post-Taylor era. Based on what we've been hearing, and what Chris thinks about the people behind it, the word 'union' is just being used as a euphemism for 'takeover'. They're not interested in representing the interests of the colonists - they just want to be in charge of them. If we could redirect that energy into an actual democratic process, then we'd have those arrangements all ready and waiting."

"And presented to Taylor as a _fait accompli_?" Pete asks, a little cynically, "Unless Taylor accepts it, it's just a lot of pissing in the wind."

And there's the rub. So far the Commander has proved to be remarkably resistant to allowing anyone else to set up a desk in the Command Centre - but sooner or later he's going to have to. The number of colonists now outnumbers the number of soldiers quite considerably - so the concept of a military chain of command is losing its relevance. Soldiers may be trained to accept authority, but civilians are rarely so accommodating. Add to that his illness, and the chances of him agreeing are receding ever further. No matter what else she can confide to Pete, however, that problem is one that needs to stay firmly under wraps. Things are tense enough as it is.

The sooner Jim is aware of it, the better.

* * *

To most people in the bar, the presence of Jim with his daughter and his friend's wife appears perfectly innocuous. As he's taken care to sit with his back to other people, no one can see the expression on his face as he listens to Yseult's report. She has every reason to look unhappy - as her husband's gone out to the Badlands - but Jim doesn't want people to see him looking worried. Hares tend to start running if they do.

"Any suggestions on how they're going to do it?" He asks, "It's all very well claiming they're going to start a union, but who are they going to tell? It's not much good having some representative body if people don't know about it."

"That's something that wasn't picked up." Yseult sighs, "I can only assume that you'll have someone in your office at some point today. Or Chris will come up and tell you."

"Sounds wonderful."

"Pete's worried, Jim. That's not like him. Not like him at all. If he's worried, then we definitely should be. Everything we've seen so far suggests that we're not looking at people who're keen to represent the interests of their colleagues - they just want to run the Colony. The whole 'union' thing is just an excuse to get a foothold."

"Or it might not be."

"From what Chris has been saying, if it was anyone other than the person that it is, he'd agree with you. But given who it is, I don't think that it's likely. It's a complete bastardisation of what a union is meant to stand for."

"Until they come to me, Max - there's not a lot I can do. Despite appearances, we're not a police state. Without evidence that someone's broken any of the colony's rules, my hands are tied."

"I know. I'm not asking you to act pre-emptively - but we need be prepared. If this turns out to be a perfectly innocent intention to set up a representative body, then all to the good. But if it doesn't?"

"I'll cross that bridge when I come to it." Jim sighs, "I'll drop by to see Chris later. In the meantime, I'll let you two get on with your lunch."

He's not at all surprised at what Yseult has told him - they've been expecting this for a while; or, at least, Chris has. The real frustration is the secrecy about it all; Jim is not given to such behaviour, unless it's something like a surprise party or an unexpected present, of course. Being regularly in Taylor's company, he's used to having the Commander's ear, and is equally assured that his concerns will be heard. That Taylor even goes out of his way to be available to the Colonists on a regular basis serves to add to that assurance that everyone can air their opinions. Maybe he's always just assumed that - and, in fact, for most of the people living here, there's a degree of separation that he's never noticed.

Hell, why won't these people just _talk_ to him? If they don't feel able to take their concerns to the Commander in person, then why not talk to Chris at least? Is it because Chris reports to Malcolm and not to Taylor? It's not as though Malcolm would have a hissy fit if they changed that - but Chris hasn't ever seen a need for it, so he hasn't asked. Maybe they should…

Oh, what's the point? The more he hears, the less he believes that such a gesture would be effective. If they don't do it, then it's a curtailment of colonists' rights - but if they _do_ then it's just a token gesture. Despite his lack of political acumen, it's not like he's never dealt with people who only see what they want to see before.

Oddly, for the first time since she returned to the Colony, he misses Mira's presence. Normally, he would be offloading this in her direction, and getting her input and opinion. But she's out in the Badlands, and so he has to make do with speculating on his own - which, while not entirely ineffective, is not his preferred method. He's always liked to bounce ideas off someone else; it helps to focus his mind.

His comm unit chirps, and he fetches it out, "Shannon."

" _Deputy - we have a problem. It's Chris here - I've just been shut out of one of the barns. Bob Parker's holding a meeting, and I'm apparently not welcome. It looks like he's making his move._ "

Oh, great.

"Give me ten minutes - I'll get over there. If it's just me and you, that might persuade them that we're not going to break it up and stuff them in the brig."

" _I'm outside shed 10. I can't hear much - but it sounds like he's launched into a litany of grievances. The sooner you get here, the better. We need to find out what he's complaining about so that we can answer him._ "

"On my way."

Cursing under his breath, Jim heads out. Part of him wants to have a detachment of security - but he's learned from experience that sometimes to do that makes things worse. There are occasions when it's better to negotiate than fight - and if they can show that they're the ones being reasonable, perhaps that might close this down before it gets nasty. Not that he holds out much hope of that.

By the time he gets to the sheds, however, he's wishing that he had. There's a lot of shouting going on in there.

"Hell, that sounds bad." He says, as he joins Chris at the door.

"I don't know what he's been saying - I can't hear most of it through the doors - but it's fired them right up. I imagine its a long screed of complaints that we haven't dealt with. Probably because he's never raised them with us."

"That's usually how it is."

Jim sighs, inwardly: not only has he got to try and get into a locked barn, but he's got to talk down a crowd of people who're being told that he's in with some shadowy 'elite' that wants to oppress them.

And he hasn't got a clue where to start.

* * *

Chris is hovering anxiously outside the large storage barn with a large number ten painted on the doors. As he promised, the voices within are not the friendliest Jim has ever heard; rumbling with dissent that rises and falls in waves of discontent at the promptings of strident exhortations that aren't quite loud enough to be intelligible.

"Hell, that's not what I was expecting." He admits.

Chris looks agitated, "I don't think we're on the verge of outright revolution - more like Bob laying the ground for some sort of cobbled-together show of hands."

"Should we speak them?" Jim looks worried, "I get the feeling that, if I go in there now, I'm just going to make things worse. They don't sound like they're going to want to listen to any arguments that they don't agree with. Which is probably most of them."

They are far from any assistance on the part of Guzman or his security teams; but to go in with a military escort is guaranteed to exacerbate the situation, while to go in without them seems lunacy. He's used to raging criminals attempting to escape a raid - but these are just pissed fruit pickers with a sense of grievance. He's never had to police discontented citizens before - that was usually done by the military by the time he became a cop. Not that that was the most effective strategy - most protests usually ended up with the soldiers opening fire. No matter how difficult Bob Parker is going to get - there's no way that Jim would commit such an atrocity. That wasn't why they all came here.

"He's not going to listen to reason, Jim," Chris sighs, "and arresting him would just play into his hands. It wouldn't surprise me if he tries to _get_ himself arrested - just so that he can raise himself up as a martyr to his cause."

"No chance." Jim says, "Martyrs have to die for their cause - not only am I not going to kill him, I'm not going to play his game. We keep the lines of communication open, and make it clear that we want to know if things are off. I _know_ it's a pointless gesture," he assures Chris, who opens his mouth to protest, "but at least they can't accuse us of not trying."

"I know," Chris sighs, "I just wish we could do something that isn't going to send it all to hell."

"I'll leave the ball in their court for now." Jim says, tiredly, "The mood in there is too explosive to risk me going in and being the detonator. I guess I've got no choice but to wait for him to come to me."

Chris nods, "I get the feeling you're not going to have to wait for much longer."

* * *

Regardless of the bright arc lamps that surround the camp, the presence of a bonfire is cheery and welcome, and everyone is congregating around it almost instinctively. If only the ration packs contained marshmallows - then everything would be just about perfect. Now that the sun has set, the temperature is dropping precipitately, and everyone's starting to wrap up to keep out the growing chill.

Dunham is sitting over his plex, absorbed in watch rosters; regardless of the stockade, he doesn't want them to be caught out if those bambiraptors are still keen on crashing the party. The Commander is currently on watch, seated for comfort in his rover, looking back the way they came, while Carter and Wicks are making circuits of the fence line.

Satisfied, he saves the file and approaches the Commander's rover, where he can hear Taylor laughing at something, "Sir. Sorry - here's the watch roster you asked for." He says.

Still looking remarkably cheerful, Taylor turns to him and takes the plex, "Thanks, Lieutenant. I'll look after this - you go and get some downtime by the bonfire."

"Thank you, Sir." He doesn't object - he's been on duty since first light, and would never even consider resting from his duties unless authorised to do so. Now that he has, his concerns can be set aside - Taylor's back in charge for tonight - and he happily turns and makes his way back to the bonfire.

"Do you want me to look over it?" Washington asks, still smirking from the joke they were laughing at before Dunham arrived.

"No need - you know the score, Wash. I'll leave it to you."

"Of course. Why don't you hit the sack? I can take it from here."

He yawns, widely, "Sounds good to me, Wash. See you in the morning."

As he makes his way back to his tent, someone's got some music playing, and everyone's chatting. Malcolm is engrossed in trying to read that book he found, while Bram and Charlie lean over his shoulder and try to help him. From their collectively baffled expressions, it looks like they're not having much luck. Grinning, Taylor chuckles to himself again, and clambers into his tent.

"God, this is nearly impenetrable. How the hell did they read it back then?" Bram asks, frowning at the close-packed copperplate text.

"I think it's starting to make a bit more sense." Malcolm says, "Now that I've been reading it for a while. Give me a moment - this looks like a dedication." He traces his finger along the spidery text on a small square of paper pasted onto the inside cover.

 _Herein, being the ship's log of the Barque_ Polly Constance _, so named for Miss Polly Constance Hadley, beloved daughter of Charles and Hilda. Martyred by the consumption, and taken from this life into the love of God on 12 April 1769. Requiescat in Pace._

"Presumably 'Rest in Peace'?" Charlie asks.

Malcolm nods, "Looks like the daughter died of tuberculosis. That's rather sad."

"Almost inevitable back then, though. Surviving it was pretty rare - if they weren't mega-rich and able to send her somewhere hot."

"Judging by the dates here, this log covers the last two voyages - it's not big enough to have the entire lifetime of the ship, and it's not full." Malcolm flips through pages, finding them blank from just after the middle of the book. "Don't expect me to start at the end, Bram. I'm not someone who goes to the last pages of a detective story to find out who the murderer was. I'd rather see if there's a reported position so that we know where they were when they were caught up in the portal. That's the only thing that could've happened based on what little witness information we have."

There's an air of reluctance in that comment. Seated nearby, Mira is quite convinced that he wants to do that not because he's keen to have a geographical position for the portal in the future - but because he's too afraid to read anything that might have been set down if there were survivors. After all, their prospects of surviving in this environment would've been nil - and their demise would've been horrible. Given his own experiences, that's the last thing that Malcolm would want to read. Whether Bram would see it that way, she can't be sure - but she's not got where she is by being oblivious to the emotions of others. Instead, she sits quietly, and waits for Malcolm to find the relevant entry. He won't understand the terminology, so it'll be down to her to calculate the position from the readings set down in the log.

After a while, he stops flipping pages, and sighs, "Here it is."

"What?" Mira asks, shifting to look at him, "The wormhole?"

Malcolm nods, "I've got a set of coordinates here - the last that were taken before it happened. According to the log, they took a westerly course to avoid bad weather - they'd had a report shouted across to them from an incoming merchantman that'd lost the top of one of its masts."

Intrigued, she comes to sit beside him, and notes the latitude and longitude, "It won't take me a moment. Have you got a map on your plex?"

Malcolm nods, and hands it over. It doesn't take her long, "Here - about halfway between Puerto Rico and Bermuda. They knew their weather - if they were facing a hurricane, they were going the right way about avoiding it. Unfortunately, it put them in the path of a wormhole instead."

He takes the plex back and looks at the mark she's made. It's slap bang in the middle of nowhere - there's nothing to indicate that the opening is anything but random. Their capture in it was sheer mischance, it seems. They wouldn't have seen it coming, wouldn't have expected it…nothing.

His expression rather shaken, Malcolm hands the book over to Mira, who sits and pores over the page, slowly deciphering the text.

 _All things reported normal until at the third quarter past the hour of six, there appeared a great light before us. With insufficient time to amend our course to avoid it, we sailed forth in hopes of passing through it and leaving it behind us. I noticed a strange sense of crackling-ness all about me, as though we were sailing through a storm, and the lightning danced about the tops of our masts - and a smell of equal strangeness. And then, in a mere instant, there was no sea, but instead a great ocean of sand, and all about me fell to starboard as the ship heeled over, for there was no water; only ground._

"Smell?" she asks, rather sobered by the description.

"Ozone, I think - it's a pretty pungent odour, and smells rather like chlorine." Bram says, "The crackling's probably static electricity - something akin to St Elmo's fire if the description of lightning around he masts is anything to go by. I'd expect to see that around a wormhole portal." Even he sounds rather subdued.

"How many people survived?" Charlie asks, quietly.

Mira scans the text again, "About twenty men out of a complement of sixty. It looks like most were killed by the cargo falling on them below decks, and one or two fell out of the rigging. Three were never found, so it's likely that they were lost overboard and remained behind in the ocean. If they didn't drown, then sharks would probably have got them."

"So it looks like the journey through the portal is survivable, then." Bram says, "If you're prepared for it and you know what to expect so you can protect yourself."

"The only problem is," Malcolm adds, "What happens to you when you get here if there's no one to meet you?"

Mira looks down at the book again, "I imagine this will tell us."

"I'm not sure I want to know."

"Okay, this is really weird." She says, reading on, "The ship owner survived as well, but he insisted that when they moved on in search of a settlement that they drag the figurehead with them. It's like he was so attached to it as the only remaining evidence of his daughter that he couldn't leave it behind."

They exchange glances; that must be how it got as far away from the portal as it did. It also shows just how much power Hadley must've had if he forced them to do something so utterly contrary to the rules of survival.

"They had no idea." Malcolm says, after a while, "They thought they could find a settlement. If he'd known there were no humans on the planet at all, perhaps he would've left it behind."

"As far as I can make out," Mira adds, "the Captain got them to break some of the ship down to make a sled of sorts, and they used that to drag the water kegs with them. Hadley wasn't thinking straight, but the Captain was."

Her voice is heavy with sarcasm; but only Malcolm picks up on her second meaning, as he sags a little. It feels horribly similar - he and Mira are a combination of the Captain - and Taylor is becoming Hadley.

Hopefully that doesn't mean that he'll lead them to their deaths, too.

* * *

The bonfire has burned down somewhat, but still gives off welcome warmth as the temperatures continue to drop. While its light isn't much help for those who are sitting around the logbook, the arc lamp above their heads solves that problem.

Of all those present, Mira seems to have the least trouble deciphering the astonishingly ornate cursive script, and so she is reading it aloud to everyone who wants to listen. A rather bizarre bedtime story that grows ever more macabre as she makes her way through the last days of the crew of the _Polly Constance_.

So far, they have made remarkable progress through hostile landscapes that offer no prospect of good hunting, or of water. The men are not, of course, habituated to desert environments, so they haven't the first idea where to look for that most vital survival element - relying instead upon the contents of the water kegs. None of them know that their efforts to find civilisation are 85 million years too early to be successful.

All they have left to eat is hard-tack, as their preserved supplies have inevitably spoiled in the brutal heat of the Badlands. That, and sun-warmed water are all that they have now. That and their as-yet unbroken hope of rescue.

The eagerness of the Captain to abandon the figurehead could not be clearer - but he's up against the owner of the ship, a man used to luxury and ease who has no idea how to survive in lean times. He assiduously records their arguments - presumably to present to Lloyds when they find a settlement and can arrange to make their way home.

"There's no mention of dinosaurs yet." Bram notes, intrigued.

"That doesn't surprise me." Mira advises, "There's no reason for Bambis in particular to come out this far - the lack of water and available prey tends to keep them near the waterholes and scrubland. They might come this far if there was a good reason to do it - like prey that justifies the expenditure of energy."

"Besides," Malcolm adds, "We're talking about people who lived at the end of the eighteenth century. Dinosaurs hadn't been discovered at that time - it was only in the nineteenth that people began to recognise fossils for what they were. They wouldn't know a dinosaur if it came up an introduced itself."

Mira resumes. Thanks to their water reserves, the party manage to continue for another six days, until - in the dark of the night - one of the crewmen is attacked by something they fail to see, and is dragged off out of sight. Everyone exchanges nervous glances at this; it seems that a bambiraptor has found them after all. Needless to say the Captain has not identified this mysterious predator - how could he, after all - and assumes it to be a leopard. On that basis, he assumes - erroneously - that he is in Africa.

By this point, a lot of people seem less keen to continue listening, and the group has shrunk considerably. In some ways Mira is convinced that the only people remaining are here in case the log mentions something that might help their quest. Not because there's a ghoulish voyeurism in hearing of that lost party's inevitably gruesome demise.

"It's definitely a bambi." She says, after a short pause to decipher a particularly illegible passage, "He describes it after two more days - 'a lizard that walked upon two legs, with a long tail - the size of a pony, or small horse. It watches and follows us, never closer than a half mile, but always there.' According to this, he still thinks they're in Africa - he's never been there so perhaps he thinks it's an undiscovered species of lizard."

After another day, there are two more: all following the beleaguered group, and it isn't long before another man is lost, then another. With only their crude sled, and the water kegs, they can't build fences and they can't build fires, so they have no protection from their hunters. Needless to say, morale drops to nothing, and everyone is afraid - though the Bosun proves to be a remarkably level-headed individual who reasons that the creatures can't jump or climb easily - and they take to making camp on rock platforms wherever they can. His guess is right - and thus they go for another four days without a death.

"It can't continue, can it?" Bram asks, sadly.

Mira shakes her head, "the writing's getting harder to read now; I think the water must be getting critical. Yes - they're down to two kegs, no sign of an oasis, no appreciation that they can find standing water in amongst the rocks. Ah."

"Ah?" Malcolm asks.

"The figurehead - the tension's come to a head. The captain and Hadley have had a roaring argument about abandoning it, and Hadley pulled a gun."

"Seriously?" Bram leans in, "Hell, he must've gone nuts or something."

"You won't like this, I think." Mira continues, "When Hadley attempted to shoot the Captain, the gun misfired and blew up in his hand. It blew off his hand and blinded him."

Everyone stares at her, open mouthed, but she resumes, "It gets worse, I'm afraid. That, on top of everything else, turns the whole thing into a complete mess. The rest of this entry is just a ramble - about how God is punishing them, and they have to appease him, so he decides to abandon the figurehead entirely, take what's left of the water and leave Hadley with his wooden daughter. But judging by this, I don't think it quite panned out like that. There's another hand here, and the writing's very different. I think one of the crewmen must've mutinied, or something - from what this says, they clubbed the Captain to death and tethered three crewmen who tried to defend him to the figurehead as well. And that's where it stops. I suppose the locked it up and abandoned it when they took off and left Hadley and the crewmen to die."

She looks up - everyone is staring at her, shocked.

"The ropes would be long gone by now - and it's a given that the bambis picked them off, or fed off their corpses when they died of thirst: which would explain the lack of bones here. But this is where we found that figurehead, so that last moment played out more or less where we are now."

She is not surprised to see that Malcolm looks particularly disturbed. The disintegration of that exploratory party is not that far removed from the collapse of the Phoenix encampment. Depletion of resources, collapse of discipline, madness, and death.

"They had no idea." he says, eventually, his voice low and very sad, "None. They assumed they'd find help - but there wasn't any to find."

Her expression equally sober, Mira closes the book, "There was; but that help was us - and we hadn't arrived yet."

A log shifts in the embers, sending a cascade of sparks skywards and rousing them all from their sombre contemplations. Somehow, the thought that their target can wreak such horrors upon innocent people makes it less of a natural phenomenon, and more of a capricious malevolence - lurking silently until it strikes, wrenching people from their lives into this place of misery and death. It's nonsense, of course; but it still feels that way. No-one says anything as they quietly disperse to their respective tents for the night.

Rolled up in his sleeping bag, Malcolm struggles to shut the horrible imaginings out of his mind. Having come close to dying of thirst himself, the thought of the sufferings of that lost group of men who had done nothing more than divert their course to avoid a storm is horribly close to the bone, and he can't stop thinking about it. He's very tired - but the speed of those thoughts turning over and over just won't let him sleep. Cross with himself, he turns over again, and punches his pillow - as though that's going to help - and tries to settle.

Only to be yanked violently back to awareness by the blast of a sonic pistol, followed by a horrible, agonised scream.


	13. Outflanked

**A/N:** Thanks for the reviews Leona and Hossfan - I'm so pleased that I'm hitting that 'season 2' vibe - it's what I'm aiming for - and if you're looking for 'oh crap' moments, more are in the offing! Yes - Taylor's really deteriorating now, and matters are about to come to a head. On several fronts...

* * *

Chapter Thirteen

 _Outflanked_

In an instant, the camp is alive with voices and chaos; lights are coming on, people are calling out to one another, soldiers emerging from their tents with guns at the ready. There is no sense of order in the clamour, and no sign of the Commander, prompting Dunham to start bashing his pistol against the side of one of the parked rovers, "Everybody - shut _UP!_ "

At once, everyone stops dead, "Get me a head count, now!" Taylor still hasn't emerged, so the Lieutenant steps into the breach as best he can. God, what if it was Taylor who cried out?

"Hell, the fence is down!" Reynolds shouts across, raising his gun and hastening to the generator, "The circuit breaker tripped," he says, crossly as Malcolm nervously crosses to join him. Being more able, Malcolm resets the breaker, and their only protection from predators spits back into life again.

"Is there anyone missing?" Dunham calls again, "Someone get me a staff manifest!"

Carter scrambles back into his tent for a plex, and returns with it, looking about as much as anyone else to see who's not present. The tension as he calls out names, and people respond, is palpable. So far, the only person not present is Taylor…

"Wicks?"

Silence.

"Hal?" he tries again. Then looks rather sick, "Check his tent. He wasn't rostered to be on watch."

Carter hastens off again. Wicks is one of his particular cronies, so it's inevitable that he'd do it. They don't have to wait long, "Lieutenant!"

Dunham, Malcolm and Mira in tow, crosses to the relevant tent. Carter steps back so that Dunham can look inside. As with all the tents housing the security personnel, there isn't much in there - and it's in perfect order. The sleeping bag has certainly been slept in - but vacated. Reaching in, Dunham rests his hand on the quilted nylon: vaguely warm - he can't have been long out of it. Perhaps he needed to use the waste compactor, and emerged…

"Who was on watch?" he steps back out of the tent again.

Silence - glances being exchanged.

"No one was on watch?" Dunham's disbelief couldn't be clearer. What happened to the roster he gave to the Commander, for God's sake?

The looks on people's faces vary from shock, to horror, to equal disbelief. How could it be possible that no one was assigned to go on watch? Everyone knows that the circuit breakers can be tripped by as little as a rogue moth. Someone _always_ has to be on watch to reset the system if the fence line goes down.

"Why the hell didn't you assign someone?" Mira asks, at once.

"I did!" Dunham protests, "Savage and Edison were supposed to take first watch, then Carter and Lynott, then Reynolds and me. I handed the roster over to the Commander for approval - and he said he'd take it from there. Travers and Wicks were going to get the night off tonight."

"You gave the roster to the Commander?"

"For approval - like I'm supposed to. He told me to leave it with him, so I did."

"Where is he?" Malcolm asks, worriedly. Taylor is still absent.

Reynolds hastily crosses to the Commander's tent. For him to have slept through a commotion like this is inconceivable - but the alternative is far, far worse.

The assembled party wait, nervously, as he unzips the flap, and then enters. For a moment, there is silent, before Reynolds emerges, with Taylor in tow. Needless to say, Taylor's expression is mightily angry.

"What the hell were you doing?" he demands of Dunham, immediately.

"What you told me to do, Sir." He answers, at once, though at half the volume, "I presented the roster to you, and you dismissed me. You told me you'd look after it."

"Well?" he turns then on the gathered soldiers, glaring at them each in their turn. Each of them shuffles, nervously; but eventually Carter speaks, "None of us received any orders, Sir."

"Don't give me that." Taylor spits back, furious, "You were all assigned your watches this evening. Whichever ones of you were supposed to be on watch, and weren't, step forward. Stat!"

Again, they exchange nervous glances. This time, Lynott does the honours, "We don't know who was supposed to be on watch. None of us received any orders, so we assumed we were the team getting the night off."

For a moment, the Commander is silent, though his mouth is open as though he intents to speak - but the words have been snatched from him. Regardless of his rage, he can't berate people for thinking that they weren't required to go on watch because they hadn't received orders to. Or perhaps they have…and they're lying to him…

"That's a lie." He snaps, coldly, "You were given your assigned times to go on watch - don't you dare pretend to me now that you didn't. One of your comrades is dead - because you weren't doing your duty."

Everyone stares at him, astounded.

"Savage, Edison. Take watch like you were supposed to." He growls, "I'll deal with you in the morning."

The pair look at one another, bemused and angry at the implication that they have disobeyed orders, as the Commander ignores them and returns to his tent.

Equally confused, Dunham looks across at Malcolm, who has no answer to give, "He can't punish them for something they didn't know they were supposed to be doing." The Lieutenant says, rather worriedly, "There's no way they would ignore an order. No way at all."

"I know." Malcolm says, his tone concerned as well, "I'll speak to the Commander in the morning. No guarantees, but I'll see what I can do to smooth this over. Chances are he'll realise that he's made a mistake - and he'll apologise."

Dunham nods, though he doesn't look convinced.

* * *

Sat in his tent, Taylor scowls, "What the hell are they playing at, Wash?"

"God knows, Commander," she sighs, sitting beside him, "I handed out the orders - and they didn't object or complain. I've never seen anything like it before."

"Dunham must be letting discipline slip."

"He's young. Inexperienced. Give him time."

"We don't _have_ time, Wash. This is dangerous terrain - I can't afford to have people not do their jobs properly."

"Have them clean out the compactors when we camp tomorrow night." She suggests, "That's no one's favourite job."

He looks at her, his anger fading as his face crinkles into a smile, "Sounds like a great idea to me. If they can't get it right, then that should focus their minds again."

"I'm full of great ideas." She grins back, "G'night Commander."

"G'night, Wash."

* * *

The mood over the breakfast rations is bleak, to say the least. The security contingent are deeply subdued, while Taylor glowers from nearby, a plate of half-eaten scrambled rehydrated eggs and crackers in his hand. Bram and Charlie are sitting with Paula, who looks as shaken as they do, while Malcolm has nibbled at a cereal bar for form's sake before retreating to check over the equipment piled up all over his rover. He is not surprised to find Mira sitting nearby.

"We have to do something." She says, eventually, "He didn't pass out the orders that Dunham left with him - and now he's blaming the security team for what happened last night. If there's only one good thing to come out of this, it's sent the Bambis off for the time being." She pauses again, "But I think I'd rather have them still stalking us, and Hal alive."

Malcolm fiddles with one of the knots on the webbing, "I don't know what to do." He admits, quietly, "I've never been out this far - I've forgotten everything Lieutenant Washington taught me about survival, and the Commander's completely compromised. How the hell do I overrule him? He'll never accept it if I try to declare him unfit - and I haven't a clue why he thought the rosters had been issued when they hadn't. He must be hallucinating in some way - but how, I can't imagine."

"I think I can."

Slowly, he turns and leans against the back of the rover, "What do you mean?"

"Everything that he seems to have done suggests to me that he's delegated things to someone. If it isn't Dunham, it must be someone else - and there's only one person I can think of that he'd trust to that extent."

"Oh, my God…" Malcolm looks even more helpless as he realises who Mira's talking about, "How the hell do I counter that? If he's seeing Lieutenant Washington, and he really believes she's here, then he's never going to listen to me, or to Dunham. It's a given that he's put her in charge - at least in his own mind."

If he was worried before, now Malcolm is frightened. Despite his agreement with Mira to surreptitiously lead the party and pretend to Taylor that he's still in charge, the fact that they must do so much more openly now is terrifying. He's a teacher, not a leader - and he wouldn't know where to start. A trip to one of the Outposts is nothing in comparison to this; but he is the next senior member of the team after the Commander. It's him, or no one.

Mira sees his sudden shift in mood, and rises to her feet. Once, she would've viewed his nervous stress with scorn - but time has softened her bluntness, and instead, she stands beside him, also leaning on the rover, "Leave the survival aspect to me, Malcolm. I know what I'm doing, and I can keep us alive. Trust Dunham to look after the security team - regardless of last night's disaster, he's a damned good soldier and he'll rise to the challenge without any difficulty. It won't be easy - but all you have to do is agree with my decisions, let Dunham get on with it, and get on with your science. We'll deal with Taylor as we need to; but I think it's got to the point where we have no choice. We have to sideline him - and if he finds out, then that's just the way it'll have to be." She pauses, "Does Paula have sedatives in her med-pack?"

"Probably." Malcolm muses, "But I can't be sure - and how would we administer them anyway?"

"It's worth checking. We might end up with them as our only possible means of keeping Taylor under control if things get out of hand."

"I'll bear it in mind."

Their musings are interrupted by the sound of Taylor barking orders. It couldn't be clearer that he hasn't forgotten what happened last night, or that he still blames the security teams for the deadly blunder. Her expression grim, Mira rises from the rover, and fumbles in a pouch at her waist for her sextant, "Based on how long it would've taken the crew of the ship to get this far, I think it'll probably take us a good three or four more days to get to the likely spot. I'd get your rad-meter ready, I think. I'll take some readings and get us a bearing."

"Thanks Mira."

* * *

Taylor's mood is no better as they break camp and form up. Much as he appreciates that Mira has the knowledge that will take them from here, it still rankles with him that he is being obliged to follow someone who betrayed him so utterly. His ability to use old-fashioned means of navigation has long atrophied - and he only learned the theory anyway. By the time he was out in the field, navigation using the sun or the stars was so difficult that everyone was relying on GPS to tell them where they were. Not even Wash can help him with that problem - while she had certainly become adept at using a sextant, she doesn't have one with her.

"Why the hell didn't you bring your sextant with you?" he growls.

"It got stolen during the occupation, Commander," she answers easily, used to his occasional fits of bad temper, and not remotely concerned about them, "I can't take readings if I don't have the means. Mira does."

"And she didn't steal yours?"

Washington shrugs, "I doubt it. She wasn't part of the groups that were going round breaking into people's houses and confiscating anything they thought might be used against them. She's been out here before, so she must have one of her own." She pauses, as though considering an unpalatable subject, "Is it me, or is Malcolm a bit too friendly with her?"

God, the woman _must_ be psychic, "I'm not sure." Taylor admits, "But he seems to be working with her a bit too closely for my liking."

She turns to him, "It wouldn't be the first time, would it?"

Taylor shakes his head, "No - that wasn't what it looked like, was it? He was working for them because people would get murdered if he didn't."

"That's what he says." Washington muses, "Just like he says two of the sixers tortured him."

Taylor looks at her, startled. It should be because she couldn't possibly know such a thing - but instead, he is shocked at the thought that Malcolm would have made it up. Perhaps he did…to cover up what he was doing…

He lapses back into silence, and continues to follow Malcolm's rover, though his mind is still turning over the possibility that his Chief Science Officer has betrayed them all and teamed up with a Sixer. After another four hours, the charge in his own vehicle is showing dangerously low levels, so he is obliged to call a halt, "Need to change batteries."

Washington smiles, "Always have to, sooner or later."

No one minds the stop, and people are soon out of the vehicles, stretching their legs, though Dunham has three of his team scouring their trail with long-range viewers, as there's no guarantee that they've shaken off their pursuers. It comes as no surprise to anyone that Malcolm is one of the first to fill his water-bottle at the tank in the second rhino - in spite of the different circumstances, he can't shake off his horror of thirst, but he also fills a second bottle, and wanders around to the rear of the column to hand it to the Lieutenant, mainly to touch base with him on how things are going.

"Not too bad at the moment, Doctor." Dunham reports, his eyes still on the horizon, "There's not so much cover here, so if there are still bambis on our trail, they're not too close by. I've got the weapons on full power in case I'm wrong, though."

"What's Mira up to?" Taylor's sudden interruption startles them both, and Malcolm turns to look back at whatever it is that the Commander is expecting him to see. To his confusion, she's just taking another reading, and making more calculations over the chart that they retrieved from Hooper's records.

"Er…it looks like she's taking some bearings, Commander?" he answers, a little nervously.

"The hell she is. Where's she taking us?"

"I'm not sure I follow you, Commander." Now he is bemused - has Taylor forgotten what they're out here for?

"Don't give me that, Malcolm. She's not in charge of this expedition - _I_ am, and I don't take kindly to being sidelined. What're the two of you up to?"

"What do you mean?" Now Malcolm is completely confused - but also distinctly unnerved, "We're looking for the energy source that triggered the wormhole that brought the ship through. What else would we be doing?"

Taylor's eyes narrow, dangerously. It wouldn't be the first time that the Sixers have attempted to assassinate him - and this would be an easy way to do it - return without him, claim it to be a tragic accident, and then Terra Nova would be theirs to do with as they pleased…

Trapped between the back of the rhino, and the side of the one next to it, Malcolm has nowhere to run, and he fumbles for something that he can say that won't make matters worse - which is particularly challenging as he is more aware than he used to be of just how good he is at doing exactly that.

"Commander - I need to ask you something. Just one thing. Who did you put in charge of guarding the perimeter last night?"

"What the hell does that have to do with anything?"

"Just answer the question." Despite his nervousness, Malcolm forces himself to square his shoulders, and look at least slightly authoritative, "If it wasn't Lieutenant Dunham, who assigned the watches last night?"

Taylor glares at him, "The only person I trust in this whole damn party, Malcolm." Though he volunteers no more than that.

Without a name, Malcolm decides to go for it, "Lieutenant Washington?"

 _That_ name turns everyone's heads, and the four soldiers are staring in disbelief. In spite of his nerves, Malcolm can see from Dunham's expression that suddenly a lot of things are falling into place. The failure of Taylor to confirm or deny the question merely settles it.

"Commander…" Malcolm pauses, and swallows nervously, "the Lieutenant isn't with the party - she isn't on our manifest. She…died…nearly two years ago." He is scared stiff of how that'll go down, and struggles to get the words out, hoping to God he hasn't triggered an explosion.

Unfortunately, he has.

Taylor's face darkens with rage, and his hand snatches up to clasp Malcolm by the throat, "Don't you _dare_ try to pretend that you're doing this for the colony!" He snarls, viciously, "Lieutenant Washington is _twice_ the man you are! And she's a woman! I haven't forgotten what you did when she was doing everything in her power to keep the colonists alive! And what're you doing? Teaming up with a goddam _Sixer_!"

Malcolm snatches at the Commander's wrist, choking under the iron grip, only to find himself slammed backwards into the wall of the rhino behind him so hard that his vision crazes for a moment.

"There's no way in _hell_ that you're taking us into the desert to die, you damn traitor! I'll shoot you myself!"

His vision is starting to go, as he fights to breathe, but can't. Oh God - he's going to die out here, and it's at the Commander's hands…

And then, just as he is one the verge of passing out, the pressure upon his throat is suddenly loosed, and he drops to the ground heavily, struggling to force air back into his lungs. Slowly, as he regains his senses he looks up to find that the Commander has been toppled, and lies unconscious nearby, while Dunham stands over him, the butt of a pistol emerging from his fist.

"Sorry, Doctor. If I'd known he was going to do that, I'd've set my pistol on stun." Crouching beside Malcolm he looks concerned, "Are you alright?"

"I am now." He croaks, weakly, though the shock of the assault is still strong. Of all the things he had expected, being threatened with death while being strangled wasn't one of them, "Thank you, Lieutenant."

Mira is suddenly there, an improvised cosh in her hand, "Hell, what happened?"

"Taylor tried to kill me." Malcolm explains, slowly rising again, "I think it's safe to say that he's definitely compromised."

"And how." She agrees, "In which case, I guess it's now you in charge. For real."

Malcolm closes his eyes, of all the things he's being asked to do - that was the one thing he didn't want.

Now, however, it appears he's stuck with it.

* * *

Sitting at his desk, Jim wonders if he's done the right thing. Discretion might well be the better part of valour, but somehow, he can't help but feel that he chickened out of a confrontation last night - and now it's going to come and quite squarely bite him on the ass. It seems crazy - how on earth can anyone seriously organise mob rule in this place? But nonetheless the fact that someone seems to be trying is worrying, and Jim has no idea how to counter it.

Of course, it's no surprise that Parker is moving purely because Taylor's gone OTG. No one would dare challenge the Commander if he was still here - his aura of authority is all but tangible, and the respect that people have for him verges at times almost on the religious. Given that most people seem to have rejected God, they still need someone to worship, it appears.

He looks up as Elisabeth arrives, a flask of coffee in her hand, "I thought you might like this, given how little you slept last night." Her tone is a little pointed - and he is not surprised to find that he couldn't hide his worry from her.

"I'm sorry." He sighs, "I should've said something."

She frowns, and draws up a chair to sit with him, "What is it?"

"It looks like the Agriculture team are on the verge of throwing their own revolution." He admits, quietly, "And I haven't the first idea how to stop them."

Elisabeth's eyes widen in dismay, "Surely not - I know they form a large group in the Colony, but they're hardly a majority. What do they expect to do - overthrow us with pitchforks and billhooks?"

"If they do, then Guzman's going to have to deploy his soldiers - and that's the last thing Taylor would want." Jim sighs, "I'm hoping that this Parker guy'll come and confront me. Maybe I can head him off at the pass - invite him in and tell him this is his opportunity to spill."

"I don't think he wants to do that, Jim." Elisabeth reminds him.

"Maybe not - but if I do it, then he's got less of an excuse to say that we've ignored his complaints. The fact that he's ignored every opportunity so far to come and have a moan at us means it's pretty obvious he doesn't intend to; but he's telling everyone that Taylor's a dictator who doesn't care about them. If we make it clear that he's missed every chance to tell us what his problems are, perhaps people won't be so keen to listen to him." He opens the flask and pours out some of the coffee, "That's what I'm waiting for. If he was working up to it yesterday, then he might finally show his face in here today."

They look up as the door opens to admit Guzman, who has a piece of paper in his hand, and a worried expression on his face, "Thought you'd like to see this, Deputy. There are piles of them all over the marketplace."

Concerned, Jim reaches for it.

 _Comrades,_

 _The time has come. With Taylor away, we are free to rise up and demand are rights as workers, not slaves. He does not care about you, or your families. He only cares about his soldiers and there privilidges. It is time to make a stand and take the colony for areselfs and are children._

 _If your with me. Be in the market square at 19.00, and we will claim are rights back from the elite who have taken them from us._

 _Your friend._

"Hell - are people taking this seriously?" Jim asks.

"I'm not sure," Guzman admits, "Most people who read it are looking at how badly written it is - but they might come along to see who their 'friend' actually is. Even if they don't support whoever wrote this note, it's going to look almost like they do."

"What's the word on the ground? Most people don't tell me much, but I've always assumed it's because they haven't got much to tell."

"I'd say that it's mostly because you're right. People who live and work in the main compound don't tend to have a problem with Taylor - but most of my teams reported at least a degree of resentment while they were out helping with the planting. Even though they were there, apparently they were 'doing it wrong' or 'not doing it fast enough' or a hundred and one other petty criticisms. It's as though the people who were whining that the soldiers never did anything wouldn't cut them any slack, and they were still trying to find things to be resentful about."

"It can't be everyone, can it?" Elisabeth asks, "Surely the _entire_ agriculture department isn't supporting this?"

"I guess we'll find out tonight." Jim sighs, "Call Max - she needs to be here, and Chris and Raj. If we present a united front, perhaps that might shut them up."

* * *

The gathering in the marketplace is worryingly large. From his vantage point on the balcony, Jim isn't sure how many have come to protest, and how many have just come to gawk. He can only hope that the gawkers are in the majority - he can't be certain.

Yseult looks nervous, "Look at them all - are they all here because the note said to be?"

"Probably." Jim admits, "Though I think most are here to see who wrote it - I imagine he's going to do the big reveal this evening."

"I don't like to bust your bubble, Jim," Chris looks very concerned, "Most of the people here are from my departments - and, judging by the noise in the shed yesterday, there are a lot of them with axes to grind."

"Then why the hell haven't they come to us about them?" Guzman hisses, quietly, "Taylor can't address grievances if people don't raise them."

"I've been trying to figure that one out for the last few weeks." Chris admits, "God knows - but it's hard to be a man with an axe to grind if people are keen to help you resolve the problem that you're building up into a massive problem that only you can solve."

His eyes on the crowd below, Jim realises that he's never actually seen the man that they think to be behind the entire movement. He wouldn't have a clue who Bob Parker is - and doesn't even know if he's actually in the crowd below, or sitting at home having a good laugh at how gullible people can be. That said, he would rather it was the latter.

"Is it me," Raj asks, "Or is that crowd getting ugly?"

There's no denying it: there's a definite atmosphere down there. If it _is_ Bob Parker who's been firing them up, then he's been doing a very good job of it. Now that he's thinking about it, Jim regrets gathering the senior staff together like this - he couldn't have looked more 'us and them' if he'd tried.

"There he is." Chris says, suddenly. Following his gaze, Jim watches as a stocky, ruddy-cheeked man of medium height saunters through the crowd with an air of assurance that might be pride, or arrogance; possibly both. Whatever he's got planned, he's confident - that's for sure.

Ignoring the gathered staff on the balcony, he plants himself on the first sequence of steps and raises his hands for quiet.

"Comrades! The question of the governance of our Colony is now on the order of the day. The elite, in whose hands the power now rests, desire a bourgeois republic, that is, a state system where power remains in the hands of the elites who govern the country by means of the old institutions, namely: police, bureaucracy, and a standing army.

"We desire a different republic, one more in keeping with the interests of the people, more democratic. All power in the state, from the bottom up, must belong to the Workers, Agricultural Labourers, Builders and others who toil with their hands and sweat. The central state power uniting these groups must be a Constituent Assembly, National Assembly, or Council no matter by what name you call it.

"Not the police, not the bureaucracy, who are unanswerable to the people and placed above the people, not the army, separated from the people, but the people themselves must run the state. It is they who will establish the necessary order, it is they whose authority will not only be obeyed, but also respected, by the workers.

"Only this power can solve the great question of the land in a non-bureaucratic way and not in the interests of Taylor and his fellow elites. The land must not belong to the landowners, but to all.

"Do not allow the police to be re-established, do not let the state power or the administration of the state pass into the hands of the bureaucracy, who are non-elective, undisplaceable, and paid on a bourgeois scale; get together, unite, organise yourselves, trusting no one, depending only on your own intelligence and experience—and our home will be able to move with a firm, measured, unerring tread toward the liberation of both our own country and of all humanity from the yoke of slavery!

"Stand with me, and reject authoritarian rule - claim your homes for yourselves. Taylor has stood over us for long enough - and it is time for us to govern ourselves. I submit myself to you as a temporary leader, who will ensure that Terra Nova will be governed by the people, for the people. We have been given a new world - we must claim it for our families, for our children - for our future!"

Jim stares at the man below, "God, he's a better speaker than I expected."

"The hell he is," Yseult snorts, "he's lifted most of it from Lenin."

"Pardon?"

"One of my boyfriends at University was into Marxism. He had collection of speeches by Lenin - and that was one of his favourites. It's the speech Lenin gave to the Ismailovsky Regiment in 1917. Bruno used to drive everyone nuts with it - and it's one of the reasons why I split with him."

"I don't blame you."

He hasn't finished, though, "When Taylor left, he did not trust us to govern ourselves in his absence - but appointed one of his favourites. I say it's time to end such cronyism! Look at them all - standing up there above us as though they're our betters!" he turns, "Come down here, Jim Shannon! Come on - if you're one of us, then stand down here and talk to us!"

He doesn't hesitate. Leaving his colleagues where they are, Jim comes down to the halfway point, but no further, "If you have such a problem with us, Bob. Why haven't you told us about it? It's not like we haven't given you the chance. How many of Taylor's surgeries have you been to? What about Chris's open forum meetings?"

"And you think that they would make a difference?"

"And you think they wouldn't? How d'you know if you never came to one?"

"Enough with that shit," Parker snorts, "Either you come down here and we have a vote, or get back up there and leave us to it. Either way, you're not in charge of this colony." He turns back to the crowd, "I'm offering you a chance to get back the democracy you left behind! When have you had a vote here? When has Taylor ever done anything to help you? We could've made a deal with Weaver - but instead he left us all to be occupied - because he didn't want them to mess up his stupid pipe dreams of a new utopia! Well, we're done with it. Who's with me?"

For a moment, there silence, and Jim is hopeful that his words have fallen on stony ground.

"If we stand together, then we can stop the military!" he continues, "Keep what you grow and supply it on your own terms, not though a collective that benefits only the scientists and soldiers! We deserve to be heard, too! Are you with me?"

It begins as a low murmuring, but the crescendo soon starts to build. To his dismay, Jim can see that the current is very much in Parker's favour, and it's surging like a tidal bore up an estuary.

" _PAR-KER! PAR-KER! PAR-KER!_ "

The chant is horrible to hear, and Jim fights with himself not to retreat up the stairs. God - how could Parker have done that so easily? But then - they couldn't counter a popular movement that they couldn't see. All of his work over the last few months has been building to this - and in a matter of minutes, he has swept himself to the forefront of a popular revolution. Just like that.

Pausing only to shoot a smug glance in Jim's direction, Parker shouts out that they intend to gather a few people together to set up the electoral process for a representative council, and will adjourn to that same shed that they'd held that meeting in - shed 10. From tomorrow, it seems, he shall be the interim head of the colony, and the 'elite' shall no longer be relevant.

Guzman comes down to join Jim, his expression bleak, "If I deploy soldiers, then it'll go to hell. I don't want bloodshed."

"Me neither." Jim sighs, "Hell - Taylor's gonna flip when he gets back."

Yseult comes down as well, her expression nervous, "Is it just me, or - when they started chanting 'par-ker like that, did it sound a bit like _sieg heil_?" She shudders.

The two men look at her, and exchange a glance. Now that she's mentioned it – yes: it kind of did.


	14. Flood

**A/N:** Thanks for the review Leona - as we all know, Malcolm is hardly Mr. Diplomatic, so perhaps it was inevitable that he'd say the wrong thing to a paranoid Commander. At least they know that he's not safe to be around now, so they can deal with him. And the Bambis. And finding where the portal will form. Only a short 'to do' list, then!

And thank you to you too, Guest - I'm glad the story is going down well! Fortunately, I can provide you with an update, so I hope you enjoy!

* * *

Chapter Fourteen

 _Flood_

The dinner that Elisabeth has provided is, as always, excellent; but no one has much appetite, and the portions lie largely untouched upon plates.

"That was too easy." Jim says, "He stood there, ripped off someone else's speech, and everyone was falling over themselves to replace Taylor with him. I don't get it. He must've had plants."

"That must've been what he was doing the whole time the graffiti was going up, and the notes were being dropped." Chris agrees, equally worried, "He was distracting us with those so we wouldn't notice he was priming people in the background."

"Why would he do that?" Raj asks, "What is it about the Agri teams that makes them so unhappy? It's not like my teams aren't out in all weathers working their asses off - but if they get pissed about it, we just let off steam at Boylan's in the evening."

"There aren't as many men in your teams as there are in mine." Chris reminds him, "Believe me, I've tried all sorts of ideas to get them to air their grievances - and it used to work, but…" he pauses, "D'you know - I can't even remember when that started to change. Bob must've been doing this for a year or more, and I never even noticed."

Everyone exchanges glances, "Any guesses as to why?" Elisabeth asks.

"He's always wanted to be in charge of people." Chris muses, "Every time a managerial role came up, he was the first to try for it. But he's one of those people who just doesn't have anything to back up his belief in himself. I have team leaders who came in with proven track records for managing agricultural practices - and he just wasn't one of them. I can't have someone in charge of orchard management when all he's ever done is casual labour as a picker. He's got no experience of husbandry at all - the only reason he's in the Orchard is because he hasn't got any skills that I can use anywhere else."

"Great." Jim mutters.

"Are you alright, Max?" Elisabeth asks, quietly, "You haven't said anything all evening."

Yseult looks up, "Sorry. It's just - everything about this makes me very uncomfortable - I wasn't kidding about the _sieg heil_ scenario. That sort of thing sends a lot of shudders down my spine. It may have been a couple of centuries ago, but that discomfort is almost wired into me. I think we've never really lost it - not after what followed the last time we heard that sort of thing in our communities."

And she gets it, "It would. Wouldn't it?" she agrees, "That can't be easy."

"Sorry - I don't get what you mean." Raj says.

"I'm German." Yseult explains.

"Ah. I see." He looks a little embarrassed, "Sorry - I didn't realise."

"I know." She dredges up a smile, "I've lost the accent, so most people don't. Some of my relatives were imprisoned in the 1930s for opposing National Socialism. A lot of people don't realise that not all Germans were Nazis - or that not a few lost their lives because of it. It was a horrible time in our history, and to hear someone doing it again makes me nervous. It's a dangerous mistake to think that something like that can't happen again - even on a small scale."

"Well, I think we can guarantee that, whatever he's doing in shed 10, it won't be organising elections." Raj finishes.

"That's a given." Chris agrees.

"The big question now," Guzman says, having listened quietly throughout, "is whether we arrest him, or try to reason with him. Judging by what you've been saying, I think either option's going to go south. If we arrest him, we're oppressive - if we reason, we're weak. If he can keep up the momentum, then whatever we do isn't going to salvage things. Not while we're missing Taylor."

"The only thing I can think of is to talk to our own teams," Yseult adds, "see if we can head them off at the pass, and perhaps turn the tide by having them talk to people who're still on the fence over this. I doubt that Bob's managed to nobble anyone who isn't in your department, Chris, so it may be that we can effect a rearguard action and stop this before it goes too far."

Jim looks at Elisabeth - she doesn't look particularly hopeful, and even Yseult's tone is doubtful. The promise of elections and representation is a temptation that most would struggle to pass up - particularly after so long living in a community managed by the military. That Taylor has no wish to impose overt martial law is immaterial; he's still a soldier, and that's always going to be a problem for some people.

"This is nuts." He says, eventually, "I don't see why people are so down on the whole thing - living here is pretty damn hard, and you need someone strong at the top to keep a handle on things."

"Not always." Raj looks concerned, "When Weaver and his soldiers turned up, we were pretty helpless against them without Taylor. Even Lieutenant Washington couldn't do anything once it became clear that anything she tried would leave people dead - given that she was the next in the line of authority because you were out of the compound with Taylor, Mr Guzman, it was a given they'd trap her like that. There wasn't anyone else who was even approximately 'in charge' so the rest of us were like a load of headless chickens until we got you back from your concussion, Jim."

"Which makes us sitting ducks for someone like this who was in for the long haul." Elisabeth says, "Even though the Commander didn't leave us without a chain of command - it's still 'command', and that means one person in charge. I think it would probably all fall apart once Taylor comes back - but he's got to come back for that to happen, and we don't know how long the expedition's going to be."

"Or how compromised he'll be when he does." Jim adds, a little tentatively. There's no point in ignoring _that_ problem. If Taylor's beyond help by that time, then they're really screwed. God - what if they don't come back? Malcolm and Mira have no idea what's wrong with him - what if he does something that kills them all? He shudders inwardly at the thought.

"If that happens," Elisabeth admits, "Then we'll have no choice but to negotiate; but if Bob doesn't keep his promise and organise elections, then that's going to completely compromise him, too. People are expecting that now - and excuses don't work forever."

"We can talk about this all night." Yseult says, sounding very tired, "But until he makes his first move, we won't have any idea how to counter him. The ball's firmly in his court at the moment, so whatever we do, he could undermine us just because we haven't anticipated what he's going to do next."

Jim looks at the cold remains of his half-eaten dinner. No matter what they do, she's right. Until Bob Parker sets out his stall, they're completely stuck.

* * *

Paula looks up at Malcolm, "I think it's a concussion - so he'll be pretty out of it for couple of days, I'm afraid. It's not like the movies - If people really get concussed, they don't get up, shake their head a bit and carry on."

"I'm sorry, Doctor Wallace." Dunham looks worried. "I didn't mean to hit him too hard - I just wanted him to stop."

"I'm glad you did." Malcolm admits, rubbing at his reddened throat a little, "I don't think he was going to let up." He is very shaken - but he is doing all that he can to hide it.

"Can you keep him sedated?" Mira asks, "His behaviour was completely out of character, and it's been erratic since we left. I'm not comfortable with his being in charge if he's going to keep trying to kill people."

"Actually, do you have any diagnostic equipment?" Malcolm asks, almost on impulse, "I'm wondering if there's some sort of illness involved - he's not been right for a long time."

"I've got one of Doctor Shannon's blood scanners." She answers, "We were concerned as to what effect the theta radiation would have on us if there was more than a basic background level. If there's anything in the blood, it'll pick it up."

Malcolm looks a little doubtful; Elisabeth's blood tests hadn't revealed anything; but if they have no means to do a brain scan - which was her intention as soon as she could do it - then perhaps something might show up this time.

"Doctor - there's movement about a mile behind us!" Travers calls back, urgently.

"Damn, they haven't given up." Mira says, crossly, but makes no further comment, leaving the decision to Malcolm.

"Can we fit the commander in one of the rhinos?" he looks a little nervous, but manages not to sound it.

"More or less." Reynolds reports, "If we're quick, we can shift some of the supplies out of number one and move it into number two - we've got more space because we've used up rations."

"Get a team to clear a space in rhino one. We can lay him out in there - make sure there's room for at least Paula - but if you can get one of the team in there as well, I'd prefer that. Bram, Charlie - we need to do the shifting if there are bambiraptors out there; I need as many eyes on them as possible. Dunham - organise a watch team. Rifles on maximum."

Mira nods, approvingly as everyone gets to work, "I'll take another reading and determine a heading, Malcolm. If we're not done when I've finished, I'll pitch in."

Rather than watch as everyone else does the work, even Malcolm assists with the movement of boxes and crates from the first rhino to the second, while the bulk of the security team keep a close eye on the approaching raptors. Without the element of surprise, the creatures are keeping well back, and the task is completed in safety.

Under Paula's supervision, Charlie sets out a sleeping bag and a few pillows, and the Commander is soon settled, "I think it might be worth cuffing one wrist to the bulkhead, Doctor." Dunham adds, looking in, "If he knows what he was doing when he comes to, he'll be glad we did."

Much as he doesn't want to, as it smacks of overkill, Malcolm knows that the Lieutenant is right: "Fair enough - if you could do that?"

"Not too high up - he needs to be able to turn onto his side." Paula says, firmly, "I don't want him choking if he vomits - and he might well do that when he comes to."

This discovery causes a mild outbreak of reluctance on the part of the security team to ride in the rhino, until Reynolds volunteers, "Believe me, I've got a small child in the house - I've been on puke cleanup duty for the best part of a year."

His colleagues' collective relief is almost palpable.

"Savage - can you drive the commander's rover. It's time we made a move - those bambiraptors aren't going to hang back for too much longer." Malcolm sounds remarkably authoritative - though he is still surprised that people are obeying him. Being used to being regarded as annoying but inevitable - like bugs - the concept of being a respected commander is miles away from his version of 'normal'.

"I'll drive." Mira advises, as they return to his rover, "You still look like a man who's been strangled. Besides, I need you watching your rad-meter."

"I thought you said we were three or four days away?" Malcolm looks worried, "If we start detecting it this far out, it won't be safe to approach."

"Maybe so - but it'll start spiking before we get there, so we'll know we're going in the right direction." She counters, "And you'll have an idea when we're going to need hazmat suits. You're the one who said it's going to need stupid amounts of radiation to fire up."

"I'd say 'good point', but I'm too embarrassed." He admits.

The convoy makes good progress over relatively good ground for nearly three hours - though Mira refuses to go faster than thirty miles an hour. By the time Malcolm calls another halt for water, Dunham reports that they've left the bambis behind again - though he's not fool enough to suggest that they aren't still going to keep after them.

"Any news on Commander Taylor?" Malcolm pops his head into the rhino.

"Not yet. He came round, vomited, rambled a bit, and he's gone back to sleep. He'll be like this for another day at least, I'm afraid." Paula reports, then turns as her blood monitor beeps, "Ah - that's the analysis done."

Malcolm tenses. What if there's nothing - or what if there's something?

Paula works her way through the readout that the machine has sent to her plex, "So far so normal…no, hang on."

"What?" Malcolm prompts, nervously.

"There are some proteins here which suggest a parasitic infection of some kind." She frowns, "Doctor Shannon was treating a lot of tick bites a while back - so I'd put my money on it being a form of leptospirosis."

"What does that mean?" Reynolds asks.

"It's a tick-borne infection that can be pretty hard to track down. The only reason I'm suggesting it is because of the spate of ticks we had - so it seems the likeliest candidate - though it's not a form that's familiar to me because it's prehistoric."

"Is it curable?" there is no disguising Malcolm's hope.

"Easily, yes - if you have the right medication and it's not too advanced. The trouble is," Paula looks up, "I don't have appropriate antibiotics here - not all seem to work. Worse - if it's showing up now, and didn't before, then that means that it's pretty advanced. But it certainly explains his erratic behaviour. One of the effects can be neurological deterioration - leading to dementia-like symptoms." She looks down at him again, "If we're going to treat this, we have to go back - and there's no guarantee that we'll be in time. You can only lose so much brain function before it become irreversible."

Malcolm looks a little helpless. Whatever he does, the Commander's condition looks likely only to deteriorate. Does he go on, or back? Besides, there's at least six bambiraptors behind them that they'll have to get past…

"I suggest we go on." Mira says, suddenly, "Hooper had no idea how to protect his men from ticks - and half his battalion came out of the forest into the Badlands with ticks stuck to them. One or two of my men picked up a couple, too - and they went the same way. By the point that they were permanently hallucinating like this, there was nothing anyone could do. I know that there were some promising results from small desert flowers that bloom in the spring in the middle east - and we managed to get an infusion out of some that slowed the symptoms down in my men - Hooper wouldn't touch it, of course - so if we can find some of that same species, then it might work for us and keep things under control until we get back. It's the right season, and if there's been rain recently where we're headed, we could find some."

Paula looks intrigued, "If that's an option, I'd go for it." She agrees, "The only way we can really deal with this is to try and slow things down until we get back to the colony. Given how far out we are, it's our best option."

"It's not a cure, Malcolm." Mira warns, "That's something that only Doctor Shannon will have the wherewithal to do. But if we can at least arrest the deterioration, that means that we can get this done, and get him back with at least a chance of being saveable."

She's not kidding - he can see she's absolutely serious; and, for the first time, he really feels safe to believe her, "In that case, we go on, and we see what we can find. Has everyone had water?"

No one says otherwise.

"Right. Let's move."

* * *

To a casual observer, nothing seems different in the colony this morning. Kids are on their way to school, people to their jobs. The stalls are being set out in the market, though Jim can see already that Casey is looking around worriedly. Given his perpetual existence amongst the crowd, he's one of the best observers of the atmosphere of the marketplace, and if he's concerned, then something's definitely up.

With no way to get up to the command centre, or to get down into Boylan's bar, meeting him unnoticed is an awkward enterprise. The last thing that Jim wants is to put him in a difficult position - Casey Derwin is known for his ability to observe, and his contribution to the overthrow of Weaver's invasion was invaluable, regardless of the loss of his legs. With things as they are, they need to keep it that way.

A movement catches his eye, and he sees Josh coming up the steps, a mug of coffee in his hand, "Hi Dad, I thought you'd like some proper coffee given that you're up here at the moment."

"That looks really great." He eyes the mug with enthusiasm, "Come on in."

As soon as the door is closed, Josh's expression becomes urgent, "Boylan wants to know what he can do to help, Dad."

"That's good to know, Josh - but until we know what he's going to do, we don't know how we're going to deal with it. Does he have any thoughts?"

"Only that we need to be careful. He's thinking it's likely that this has been building for months - but he didn't know how far it'd gone. This guy Parker doesn't trust anyone except his cronies, so they didn't try to get him on side."

"Talk to him - see if you can't stage some sort of falling out, so he's not got people thinking that you're acting as a go-between. Then see if he can sweet talk his way into the inner circle. He's our best hope of getting any idea where this is going."

Josh grins, "He thought you say something like that - that's kind of his plan, too."

"Glad we're on the same page."

"We'll go and get on with that - but it'll take a couple of days at least. Otherwise it'll be too obvious."

Jim nods, "Don't rush it. Parker's not doing anything at the moment - but he won't sit on his ass forever, so it might be worth waiting to see what he does - then you can fall out over whether you support him or not. Boylan does - you don't."

"That'll be easy enough - he's got the reputation to do that, so no one'll think it's weird if he does, and I don't. Besides, it's inevitable that I'll side with you, isn't it?"

"Not necessarily - but I'm glad you would." Jim smiles, "Now, get outta here - you've been here long enough."

No sooner has Josh departed than his comm unit beeps, and he groans inwardly. What now?

" _Guzman here, Deputy, we have a problem._ "

"What sort of a problem?"

" _Parker's arrived at the barracks, he's demanding that we hand over all weaponry - to be secured elsewhere, apparently_."

Jim rolls his eyes ceilingwards, "Oh great. Try not to do anything to provoke him - just see if you can stall him a bit until I get there."

" _I'll try, Deputy - but I get the feeling he's looking for a way to be provoked, so whatever I do is gonna set him off. I have to go - he's coming back_."

So it's like that, then. Abandoning his coffee, Jim hastens out.

* * *

By the time he skids to a halt at the barracks, it's clear that a standoff is well and truly in progress. The soldiers are facing a rather unnervingly large number of men, with Bob Parker at their head directly in front of Guzman.

"It's for the safety of the colony." He says rather menacingly, "We don't need soldiers anymore - there's no army coming to invade us."

"I answer to Commander Taylor, Sir." Guzman says, blandly, "If he orders us to disband, then we'll disband. Until then, we remain as we are."

"And what'll you do if I insist? Shoot me?"

There is a rather unpleasant rumbling of comment from the mob, and it couldn't be clearer that things are on the verge of getting very, very ugly.

"Hold it! Hold it everyone - right now!" Chances are that he's not going to do much good, but at least he has to try, "What's all this about?"

"We're a democracy. We don't need a standing army." Parker says, turning round to glare at him.

 _Not one that's outside your control_. He thinks, "That's the Commander's decision." He says instead.

"And he's not here." Parker finishes, "I have a mandate from the people, so it's now my decision, and I say that the army stands down and disbands. Surrender your weapons."

"And what'll you do with them?" Jim asks, quickly, "They need to be easily reached, and used by trained personnel."

"Against what?" Parker demands.

"Against a carno?" Jim suggests: it's clear that Parker has never left the colony, and knows nothing of the dangers that lie beyond the gates. "Have you any idea how hard it is to kill one of those things?"

"Either you hand over your guns, or you shoot us all down where we stand." Parker ignores his comment, "We're not leaving until you do."

Jim folds his arms, "Not until you tell me what you're going to do with them."

"They'll be placed in secure storage. The population of the barracks will transfer over to agricultural work."

It's impossible: he can't order the soldiers to open fire, and he can't order them to hand over the weapons. It's a sure-fire certainty that those guns won't be going anywhere near secure storage if Parker has his way.

There's only one way round it.

Sighing he exchanges a glance with Guzman, "Okay - have it your way. The security teams disband - but _I_ supervise the secure storage of the weapons. If you want to be involved, you can be a witness, and verify it's been done."

"No. They hand their weapons over to us."

"You want the weapons placed into secure storage, so it doesn't matter who does it. I do it, you watch. You get what you're demanding, and we can move on. Take it or leave it."

Parker is glaring at him, but he's got no choice: he's made it clear that he wants the armoury secured - and Jim is offering him exactly that. The fact that they clearly want control of the guns is immaterial. He is prepared to make concessions if he must; but that is definitely _not_ one of them.

Scowling, Parker relents, "Do it."

Refusing to look intimidated, Jim turns to Guzman, "Bring an inventory, I'll meet you at the armoury - if there are any patrols out, call them back in."

There aren't many weapons signed out, so it only takes about half an hour to return them all, sign them in and lock up the armoury. Parker is watching like a hawk, but Jim makes a big show of entering a new code, which he then shows to Parker. Their new 'leader' doesn't need to know that he can - and _will_ \- override it remotely within the hour.

While he is not delighted, Parker is at least vaguely satisfied, but it's a small victory. Jim might have ensured that the man can't establish a personal militia, but it's not over yet. Not by half.

* * *

As the day starts to cool, Mira is clearly looking out for somewhere to camp for the night. The landscape around them has changed again, expanses of wide sand flanked here and there by great rising outcrops of rock, leftovers from a time when this dry world was beneath the sea. To Malcolm, they look remarkably similar to desert landscapes in parts of the middle east - not that he ever got the chance to go there - but the entire terrain looks utterly beautiful, deep orange sand from which rise great bulks of sandstone like enormous vessels plying a long-dead sea.

His comm unit crackles, and he lifts it, "Go ahead."

" _Dunham here, Doctor - the Bambis are still behind us, and closing in._ "

"Thanks for telling me. We'll see if we can find an elevated camping ground for tonight."

Mira nods as he signs off, "Those rocks ahead look promising, Malcolm. They'll probably have platforms we can get onto that the bambis can't. We've got ladders so we can get up high - that should keep them away. If we really want to get them off our backs, we can shoot them."

"I'd rather we didn't have to do that."

"Me too - but if it's them or us, I'll choose us every time." She pulls up.

"Why are we stopping?"

"This is a good vantage point, I want to see if there's anything down there worth trying." She steps out of the rover with a long-range viewer and scans the bases of the rocks carefully.

"Anything?" Malcolm asks, as she clambers back behind the wheel.

"Something that looks worth considering." She agrees, "It's down there to the west - it looks big enough to take our shelters and the compactors, and I think there's something nearby that we can park the vehicles on that'll keep them up off the ground. I don't like the cast in the sky."

"What?" now Malcolm is looking up nervously. To his eye, the sky is as clear as it's been from the first day they drove onto the sand.

"There's a storm somewhere." Mira advises, "It's just changing the atmosphere a bit. Given that where we're going is lower than where we are now, I'd like to get us up high to avoid more than just bambis."

Now he gets it. Just because they can't hear thunder, and there's no rain or clouds here, that doesn't mean there isn't any somewhere else, and given how quickly a flash-flood can rise and wreck everything, the safest option is definitely to get up high.

Her chosen location looks ever more promising as they approach: a high, wide platform that will serve as an excellent camping ground, with room for their tents, a mess tent and the compactors, which can be set well back from the sleeping areas. There isn't much firewood about, but there's another shelf a bit higher up that'll work well for some solar panels to charge heating devices, power their water condensers and recharge their vehicle batteries. He quickly checks his rad-meter: ah - yes, there's a reading now, and quite a strong one, too. Not enough to be problematic, but enough to make him reconsider Mira's estimate as to how long it might've taken to get from the arrival site. Perhaps they were there at a hotter time of the year, and the times at which they could safely travel were confined to morning and evening.

"Well?" Mira asked, "I was out, wasn't I?" she's come to the same conclusion, it seems, "Not that it matters - I don't know about you, but this looks like a pretty worthwhile base camp to me."

The platform rises from a narrow cleft between two shafts of a hillside, with a raised platform on the other side that, while less high, is sufficient to hold their vehicles if they park them carefully, as the approach forms something of a road up to it. It's as though the entire place was formed for their convenience by mother nature - just waiting for them to arrive. Access is limited to a narrow passage at the far end of the cleft that appears to drop into a gorge, while their entrance is wider, but defensible.

"Set up fences either side," Malcolm suggests, "That means we only need two people to man them, and everyone else can get our stuff up onto the platform. I'll rig up a pulley system to speed things up." He's glad he packed that, now. "Make the Commander your priority - get him up onto the platform and into a tent first."

It takes the best part of an hour to get everything up onto the main platform, which is quite well sheltered from the sun, and most people get to work on putting up tents, while Dunham supervises the careful arrangement of vehicles opposite, ensuring that Malcolm's rover is at the front, as he'll need it to make forays out into the desert further on.

"They've found us!" Lynott calls after another half hour or so, as darkness is falling.

Mira is sitting very still, as though she is listening, though now and again, she sniffs the air, "Malcolm," She says, after a while, "Get everyone up here, and raise the ladders. It doesn't matter about the fences."

"Why?"

"I'll explain later - just get them up here." Her expression is quite urgent. He knows better than to argue.

After another ten minutes or so, he hears a faint 'pop' sound, and knows that the fence has failed again. Sure enough, after a few tentative minutes, one of the bambiraptors enters the passage, looking about warily. Before long, there are six.

Sitting at the top, Malcolm looks down at them, watching as the group move back and forth, apparently assessing the situation. Behind him, most people are still at work setting up the camp, but he is quite fascinated by their behaviour, and he wants to see what they do while he still has sufficient light to see them - which isn't for much longer.

"Not helping, Malcolm?" Bram asks, grinning.

"Look at them." He says, quietly, "They're assessing every possible route that they could take to get up to us - we're such a tempting prospect that they've come all the way out here in hopes of a feast."

He is not surprised when Charlie comes to join them, though she looks at the creatures below with nervous revulsion, but then she pauses, "What's that noise?"

Bemused, Malcolm looks up, and then he hears it as well, a faint trickling sound that is growing to a burble, as though water is coming through. Now he understands why Mira wanted them up on the platform. Just as she feared, the distant storm has indeed triggered a flash flood - and the raptors below have no idea what's coming.

Desert storms can dump huge amounts of water - and it's clear that this one has been no exception. In a shockingly short space of time, the sound of burbling becomes a rush, and then a roar. And all six raptors are suddenly gone - swept away by the torrent as though they are nothing more than small twigs in a brook.

"Bloody hell…" Charlie has never seen such a thing as this, and even Bram looks shocked, "How did that happen? I didn't hear any thunder."

"You wouldn't." Bram grins, "If enough fell, then it's got to go somewhere."

She leans out slightly, "There's no sign of them. None at…" and then she slips as the rock her hand is resting on crumbles beneath her weight.

Bram snatches at her ankle, grasping it hard - but her weight is pulling him forward, too, and Malcolm grabs him in turn, "Help! Charlie's gone over the edge! Dunham! Quick!"

He can hear the thud of footsteps, and screams from Charlie as she dangles beneath them, but then Bram howls in horror, and the pair of them tumble backwards onto the rock, her left boot in Bram's hand.

" _Charlie!_ " Bram is scrambling to the edge again, looking down frantically - but there's nothing but churning, debris-thick water below, and even the light from the torches show that she hasn't grabbed anything. There's no way anyone could survive that - and no way that they'll ever be able to find her once the flood subsides. God knows how far the gorge stretches on the other side of the cleft.

"She's gone, Bram." It's Mira, as Malcolm is also staring glassily at the horrible mess below, "There's nothing you could've done." Her voice is unstable, as she is fighting to stop him from throwing himself into the water, eager to try and rescue his fledgeling girlfriend, "There's no way you can get her out of there - she's probably half a mile away by now. There's no resisting that current. I've seen it happen before."

"Let go of me!" he's still fighting her, "What if she's hanging onto something? _CHARLIE!_ "

There's no answer, and Dunham's lamps show nothing at the narrow exit point of the gully. There's no escaping it: the waters may have saved them from the Bambiraptors, but the cost to their team has been cruelly high; and it happened in mere seconds.

"Get him to his tent." Mira says, very tiredly, handing Bram over to Reynolds. "Malcolm. Come on - there's nothing you can do."

"Max survived." He says, after a long, long silence, "She survived because someone went in and pulled her out."

"Chances are Max was washed into a pool. There was no way that anyone could've saved Charlie. We would've just lost more people. C'mon. I'll heat some water - make you some tea."

"No thanks - but thank you for offering." He seems unlikely to move for the time being, so Mira leaves him where he is, sitting on the rock and looking down into the darkness.


	15. Flowers in the Desert

**A/N:** Thanks both for your reviews, Leona and Hossfan - I appreciate your comments! I do feel a bit sad for Charlie - she wasn't originally going to be lost, but I wanted to emphasise just how dangerous a place the Badlands are, and not every problem is down to Taylor being compromised.

The concept of the desert carpeted with flowers is based on personal experience, as I visited Wadi Rum in Jordan about seven years ago in springtime, and there had been a fair bit of rain in the weeks prior. The sands there are a wonderful red, and great stone hills rise from the desert (the Bedouin word for them is _Jebels_ ), just as they do in this story - though a wide platform like the one I described might exist - rather than being something I actually saw. Based on the rocks that I _did_ see, it's very plausible.

The flowers that are seeking are completely the same as an amazing display that I saw on that visit - the sands of the desert completely carpeted with them to the point that the sand looked violet from a distance. And yes, they gave off a wonderful, sweet fragrance - just as these do. I wish I knew the species, but I just couldn't track it down!

Anyway - enough travelogue, back to the story. Hope you enjoy!

* * *

Chapter Fifteen

 _Flowers in the Desert_

The atmosphere in the camp is subdued as the sun rises, its light coming slowly down the rock walls to join the heaters in giving them some warmth. Mira stands at the edge of the platform and looks down at the gully, now just an expanse of damp sand, with an accumulation of debris at the outflow point. Charlie's body will be miles away by now - and is likely already attracting carrion eaters. The only consolation that Mira can think of is that she would've been dead within minutes, if that. Drowning generally doesn't take more than a few seconds: most people don't realise that.

She turns at the sound of footsteps to find Dunham behind her, "I've brought you some coffee, Ma'am."

"Thanks." She takes it with a grateful smile, "How's the Commander?"

"Paula thinks it won't be much longer before he's back to full consciousness again." The Lieutenant says, worriedly, "She's already checking her stocks of sedatives."

"Good. The only way we can keep ourselves safe right now is to either keep him knocked out, or chain him up like a dog. I'd rather not go for the second option: he loathes me enough at the moment as it is."

"What do we do today?" It's not exactly an appeal for advice, more a query as to whether her idea is in accordance with his. "I was thinking we spend a day to take stock, check inventory and plan our next move."

She nods, pleased, "I concur. The condensers are in the best place - well shaded - but if we can find any other water sources, I think we should try. Now we're in amongst rocks, there are likely to be pools of standing water, though it'll probably be stagnant, so we'll need to purify it. Besides, Malcolm reported that he was getting readings on his rad-meter, so we're probably getting close. I suggest we use this as a base camp. Even if there are still bambis out there, which I doubt, they can't get up here, so we're safe from predators. The rocks keep us shaded for the bulk of the day, and we can get water and power. Rations might be an issue - but as long as we're careful, we could stay here for a few weeks if we needed to."

"I'd rather not, Ma'am." Dunham grins.

Malcolm emerges from his tent looking as though he hasn't slept at all, which is probably because he hasn't. Most of last night was spent staring rather miserably at his plex, going through his collection of pictures of Yseult and Erin, missing them horribly and wishing he'd never come here. It's only now, in the light of morning, that he's pulled himself together and made himself get up. He's in charge now, and he can't afford to be a moping about with a face like a wet weekend.

While Charlie's presence wasn't essential to the success of the expedition, she wasn't superfluous either, and she didn't deserve such a pointless, nasty death. Living in the Cretaceous has it's risks - of course it does - and she could have faced a similar fate had she been hiking in the wilderness back in the future. But he has found himself landed in charge of the party, and he feels a pretty solid responsibility for her loss.

"You don't have to tell me it wasn't my fault." He says, as he sees Mira is clearly about to do just that, "I know it wasn't - but I still feel like it was, all the same."

"It's a burden of leadership, Malcolm." She says, quietly, "God knows I lost plenty of people, so I've been where you are, over and over again. It never gets easier. The day it does, you stop doing it - because you're too damn dangerous to be a leader anymore."

He nods, then turns to find that Dunham has been back to the mess tent and fetched him a mug of coffee, which he accepts gratefully, "I don't know about you, but I think we need to stop travelling today - go through what we still have, and just rest for a day."

"That was our thought." Mira concurs, "Though I think it might be worth getting out in a rover this afternoon to see what's out in the desert. There can be some useful plants at this time of the year - and I'm hoping that the flowers I was talking about are in bloom. If we can get those, then we might be able to do something to keep Taylor a little more _compos mentis_ than he's been the last few weeks. We just need to arrest the progress of the disease - then his brain gets some time to do some re-routing and we can see how much of him is still present and correct."

"I'm not sure I want to know that," Malcolm admits, nervously, "or what we do if we've really lost him."

"The only thing we _can_ do." Mira sighs, "Keep him restrained until we get him back to the colony, and leave him with Doctor Shannon." She turns to him, "Aren't we getting a little ahead of ourselves here? Until we know how bad he is, we're just speculating, aren't we?"

Malcolm nods, "Sometimes it's easier to do that than to actually face the problem head-on."

The morning is spent checking inventory, organising supplies into storage canisters in a more methodical manner, checking power levels on the chargers and other devices, and ensuring that no one forgets to raise the ladders when they come back up to the platform if they've gone over to what Reynolds is now referring to as 'the parking lot'. The chances of bambiraptors being this far out is minimal, but they have no idea what else might be prowling around these canyons and gullies. It's best not to take any risks.

"I've set up a signal beacon, Doctor." Dunham reports, as they gather for a surprisingly not-too-horrible lunch of reconstituted minestrone soup and crackers, "If you and Mira want to go out this afternoon, you can find your way back without having to use the sextant."

"Thanks, Lieutenant," Malcolm says, a little distractedly, his attention caught by Bram, who hasn't eaten, and is instead intent upon slowly picking crumbs off a cracker, and dropping them to the rocky floor. Abandoning his crockery, he crosses to join his assistant, "I'm going to need your help later, Bram. If we find the flowers that Mira's looking for, I'll need you to help analyse them."

Bram doesn't look up, instead continuing to cumble his cracker, adding to the small pile of flakes that keep on blowing away to leave a trail like the one Hansel and Gretel laid to try and find their way back through the woods. Almost as though he hopes Charlie will use it to find her way back.

 _Come on, Wallace. Try not to make things worse this time_. A little nervously, Malcolm crouches beside Bram, "I'm sorry. You probably don't want to hear that right now, do you?" He's well aware that he can't claim to understand how his colleague is feeling - though, for a terrible half-hour, he _did_ feel like that. He was lucky, though; his despair was misplaced. Bram doesn't have that to hold on to.

Finally, Bram looks up, and his misery cuts Malcolm to the quick. He felt that - the horrible anguish of knowing the someone he loved was dead - drowned in a flood. Worse: for Bram, he doesn't even have a body to grieve over. It doesn't matter that they'd only just got together - in what way does the shortness of the relationship make the hurt any less?

"I really need you to hold it together, Bram - if you can. We have to try to stem the Commander's illness, and I can't do it without your help; I need your additional knowledge. Can you do help me?" _Please God, don't let me shut him down._

Fortunately, he hasn't - and Bram nods, quietly, "I can." He says, eventually, "It'll give me something to do. I think I need that."

Malcolm rests a hand on his colleague's shoulder, "Thank you. Don't feel you have to bottle this up, Bram. If you need to talk, please come to me, okay?"

Another nod. Relieved, Malcolm rises, and crosses to Mira, "I think he's okay for the moment - but if you can keep an eye on him, that'd be a help. I'm rubbish at reading people." He admits. He knows she's a comparative expert. Hell, even that ankylosaur that Zoe was so keen to adopt would've been better at it than he is.

Mira nods, "I'll make sure he's okay. Go and check on the Commander, if he's comfortable, we might as well get out there and start looking."

* * *

Paula looks up as Malcolm pops his head into the tent, "How is he?"

"He's mostly over the concussion." She advises, "He certainly wasn't impressed to find himself cuffed to that crate." She indicates the heavy metal crate to which one of his wrists has been attached, "And he was demanding to speak to Lieutenant Washington again, so I've sedated him."

"How long can you keep that up for?"

"Not as long as you'd probably like. I have a good supply, but my concern is that I can't keep him permanently unconscious."

Malcolm sighs, that's definitely not what he wants, either, "Mira and I are going out to see what we can find out there. She's got some ideas of plant compounds that worked quite well for some of her team when they went this way."

"If you can find something like that, then that sounds like a better option. Sedatives aren't designed to keep someone subdued 24/7."

He looks at the sleeping Commander, and shudders; what if they _are_ losing him? The need to reform the governance of the Colony has always been on the back burner - something to be discussed another day. Taylor's military sensibilities are useful in some contexts, but not others - and a move to democratic oversight is rather contrary to his regimented systems. If he's lost his rationality, then it'll be pretty much impossible to persuade him that they can't continue under the equivalent of martial law - no matter how benign.

First things first: they have to get out there and see if they can find the plants that Mira recommends - if they can at least suppress the deterioration, then it's a start.

* * *

Jim emerges from his house in the early morning light for his habitual run, and starts what is as much his first patrol of the day as it is exercise. There's an odd atmosphere today - people are not sure whether to come out of their houses or not, so he sees none of his fellow morning regulars as he makes his plodding way around the compound. In fact, the entire place is eerily quiet.

Matters do not improve as his route takes him into the marketplace, and he returns home in a state of nervous trepidation. Something's brewing - but he can't figure out what.

Elisabeth is setting out breakfast as he rejoins the family post-shower, but even here that nervousness seems to have seeped into their behaviour, and no one says a word over the fruit and yoghurt. Parker hasn't noticed yet that Jim's re-set the passcode to the armoury, but the fact that he was so keen to have control of the Colony's weaponry doesn't bode at all well. Perhaps it's a keenness to keep them safely tucked away so they can't be used against the citizenry - but, then again, perhaps it isn't. If he's truly honest with himself, Jim is very much in the 'isn't' category.

By the time he's back out again, things seem a little more normal, as people are at work, or taking their kids to school, or heading to the market to do their morning shopping. There are even some stalls open, though fewer than usual, and he spots Yseult perusing an array of spring vegetables, though her attention seems not to be entirely upon her choices.

"Watch out - you could find yourself with a bitter gourd." He grins at her, knowing that she loathes them.

"Oh - hi Jim." She turns and smiles at him, "Sorry."

"What's up?"

"Haven't you noticed?" her eyes flick slightly to the left, and he finally looks up to see that there are people standing on the stairs up to the command centre. People who look unnervingly like guards. How long have they been there? He didn't see anything when he came through on his run.

"Hell - it looks like Parker's taken up residence, then."

"That was my thought. I haven't seen him - they were there when I arrived, but if people haven't realised that ' _par-ker_ ' isn't planning on democratic representation any time soon, that might persuade them." She looks nervous, "Trouble is, it's a bit late now. Short of instigating open hostilities, what can we do that won't play into his hands?"

"At least he's not got control of the armoury. But you're right - if we break out weaponry, then he's just going to start complaining about martial law again. Getting the guns out stays the absolute last resort."

"Part of me is glad that Malcolm's not here - he'd be very minded to challenge Parker, and I think they'd hurt him if he tried. But at the same time, I wish he was." Yseult's fingers twitch, as though she is unconsciously attempting to reach out and take her absent husband's hand.

"I can't see them going that far, Max." Jim assures, though he's not massively convinced.

"Perhaps not, but once Erin's at nursery, I'll see what my teams want to do. Everyone forgets about us down at our compound, so hopefully there won't be any people watching us. Are you going to see if you can get up to the Command Centre?"

Jim nods, "It doesn't look like anyone's gonna let me in, but if nothing else, I can pretend that I want to give Parker access to the system."

"I wouldn't." Yseult warns, "If you do, he'll expect you to actually _do_ it - and it's not easy to give someone limited access without them noticing. I'd go with the 'still doing the security patrols and wanting to report in' gambit."

"Good point." Jim agrees, "I'll do that."

She looks at him, worried, "Be careful."

"Never works. I'll just stick to 'lucky'." He grins at her.

From the bottom of the stairs, the guards form a rather formidable - if amateur looking - barrier. Both are in the standard agricultural wear of cargo pants, t-shirts and canvas jackets, but their expressions are slightly at odds with the attire, as they both look worryingly impressed with themselves, and quite keen to enforce some perceived superior status.

"Morning." Jim says, quite chirpily, "Fancy some coffee?"

"Where you going?" one of them asks, the 'are' of the sentence lost in his regional accent, though Jim can't figure out where it's from.

"Upstairs. You got a problem with that?"

"Boss expecting you?" ah, now missing an 'is' and a 'the'.

"I have a security report for him." Jim answers, with slow emphasis, as though his questioner is a bit dim.

The grammatically challenged man grunts, and stands aside. Relieved, Jim heads upstairs; though the use of the word 'boss' is worrying. So much for democracy - but then, did he even pretend for a few minutes that he believed that garbage about elections?

Parker is sitting back in Taylor's chair, his legs up, boots crossed as he rests them on the glass top of Taylor's carno-skull table. There seems to be no suggestion that he's doing any work, or even looking like he's going to attempt any. Just an air of satisfaction. He's in charge now, and he's happy to sit back and let everyone else keep the colony going while he pretends to be the King. No wonder Chris wouldn't promote him.

"What do you want?" At least he remembered the 'do'.

"I used to provide daily security reports for the Commander. I'm assuming you want the same."

Parker shrugs. Apparently he doesn't give a crap about security. But then he turns, and looks at Jim, "Fair enough - but I don't need 'the fence is still up' or 'there are no dinosaurs outside'. I want to know what _people_ are doing; what they're thinking, so they don't try and take over. So you get Guzman and his stooges out of uniform and they start working in the fields. I have my own security staff - you can be in charge of them if you want."

Spies. He means spies - so he must be planning on making sure there's no dissent amongst the populace. That he was never going to give the colonists the elections he promised is a given - but any complaints are likely to end with people going to the brig. Or worse. He wonders if people really do still believe the nonsense about being able to have a council.

"That's up to you, Mr Parker." He knows better than to annoy the man by calling him 'Bob', "But it won't do any harm to keep tabs on the perimeter. If you want people to stay in the compound, and not sneak out, you need to do that." Hopefully that morsel of nourishment for his paranoia might keep the man from demanding that Jim act as a Secret Policeman. There is no way on earth he's going to do that.

It works. He can almost see the upscaling of conviction that he's in imminent danger of overthrow. The chances of anyone sneaking out of the compound and setting up a resistance in the forest is as close to zero as it's going to get - the only one who could lead such an insurrection is out in the badlands, after all - but nonetheless, Parker believes it could happen, and that's all he needs.

"Do it." He says at once, "I'll have Tom organise the security patrol."

Jim nods, looking as though he knows exactly who Tom Jackson is, and departs. God - this is getting worse by the minute.

* * *

Mira takes the rover at a careful pace, while Malcolm monitors the rad-meter. It's definitely getting stronger - though still within safe parameters - so they're probably about a half-day's drive from the likely spot, more or less depending on whether the radiation is in the general atmosphere or concentrated in a depression.

"There." Mira says, after a while, and Malcolm looks up from his screen.

"Holy God…"

The desert sand is no longer orange here, instead carpeted with a glorious array of purple and white flowers that grow close to the ground, and give off the most wonderful, sweet fragrance. He knows that such things happen in deserts in springtime - but to _see_ it…

"Don't ask me what species these are." Mira advises, "I couldn't tell you - but it's the purple ones we want. The white ones smell sweeter, but that's all they do. We had the most success with the stems and roots, so I'd suggest we collect the entire plants."

Still entranced, Malcolm nods, "I've got a spare crate on the back of the rover." She can almost imagine what he's thinking: _if only Max were here to see this…,_ "I think I'll dig up some white ones anyway - Bram might want to do something to commemorate Charlie - I don't want him to be left thinking that she's just gone and he's got to get on with it."

"That sounds like a good idea." Mira agrees, "Just be careful as you do this. Partly because we don't want to bruise the roots, but also because there are tiny scorpions out here that'll give the local species a serious run for their money, and they burrow in the sand."

Malcolm stops dead, and goes visibly pale - which confuses her. Almost at once, he retreats back to the side of the rover, "I'm sorry. I can't."

"What do you mean?" His face warns her not to treat his sudden fear with scorn.

"Scorpions. I can't go near them…" his hands are shaking now, and he looks almost as though he's going to pass out. Already, in his mind's eye, he can see them - swarming out of the sand to bring him down, cover him and start tearing into his flesh…

"Malcolm. Look at me - _breathe_ with me." Mira has his shoulders in a tight grip, and begins slow, deliberate breaths, urging him to do likewise. Slowly, she helps him to calm, and the panic subsides.

"What happened?" it's clear that his horror has a firm foundation. Most people have phobias of some sort, and to some degree - even if not all of them are triggered by a specific event - though this one clearly has been.

"I was stung by one." He says, eventually, "I was alone in a locked room in the labs: no one knew I was there. I nearly asphyxiated - I was only found by chance - and I ended up on life support for a week. I was conscious and aware of what was happening all the way through until Elisabeth sedated me - and it was horrific." He closes his eyes again, "I'm sorry - if there are scorpions out there, I can't do it. I just can't."

It'll probably take twice as long to gather the flowers they need - and the chances of there actually being scorpions are pretty small, but she's mentioned it now, so she'll just have to accept the consequences of her error. But then, if she _does_ uncover one, then Malcolm would probably have freaked out at her for not warning him.

Retrieving a trowel from the toolbox on the top of the rover, she sets to work, carefully digging out individual plants to avoid bruising or cutting the stems and roots. After shaking them out, she sets them on a tarp for Malcolm to transfer them to the crate with equal care, in between pressing her to keep at the water, as the sun is getting pretty strong. She hasn't forgotten the state they found him in in the encampment, so she doesn't argue with him - he's only asking her to do what she would be doing anyway, so it's hardly an inconvenience.

The sun is low by the time they finish, and it's clear that they're going to be cutting it very fine if they want to get back before nightfall - which will come pretty damn quick out here. Even with the strong lamps on the top of the rover, she tries hard to avoid driving in the dark in such an environment as this.

Fortunately, the tracks from their route out are largely undisturbed as there has been little in the way of wind today, and it is a simple matter to follow them back, so she can keep the speed up. They only need the lamps to help them park the rover back in the parking lot, and before long, they are sitting down to a dinner of beef stew and dumplings from a vacuum pack. Not the nicest meal in the world, but better than something dried and rehydrated.

"What do we do with the flowers now?" Malcolm asks, as Mira sips at more of the coffee substitute with only a slight grimace of dislike.

"We set them out to dry - it shouldn't take too long tomorrow. We could use them now, but drying concentrates the compounds that we need, so they'll be more effective in a solution. We were lucky the compound dissolves in water - otherwise we'd need alcohol, and there isn't any that's drinkable. The compound will work now - so we can boil some up for the Commander straightaway - but we'll get a better yield from the ones that we dry."

"I'll get a team to work on that tomorrow - it may be that Bram can come up with a more efficient extraction process that will increase the compound's potency." He leans back against the rock, and looks very despondent.

"What?"

He sighs, "I'm really sorry about this afternoon. I was all ready to pitch in - and then you said there were scorpions, and that did it for me. I didn't realise that I could react like that."

"I take it you haven't been around another one since you were stung?"

He nods.

"Then that explains why - you've never been put in that position, so you didn't know how you'd react until you were." She looks up at him, "There's nothing to be ashamed of. Keeping away from scorpions is a sensible thing to do - so it's hardly as though you were backing off from a kitten or something. That, I really don't get - unless you're allergic to their dander, I suppose."

"Just because a phobia seems irrational doesn't make it any less real if you've got one." Malcolm says, "I knew a student at Trinity who had a sister with a phobia of the colour yellow - she had no idea where it had come from, or why she had it; but she couldn't cope with seeing anything yellow, or even saying 'yellow'. I remember a group of us scanning and desaturating all of her textbooks so that she could take them home during vacs - but that still wasn't enough; even a black and white picture of a daffodil set it off because her sister knew that the actual flower was yellow. The family got in a therapist who said it was the most aggressive form of xanthophobia he'd ever seen - and she almost never left her parents' house in case she saw anything yellow. It must've ruined her life."

Mira stares at him, "You're kidding. I know people are scared of clowns - and I don't blame them either - or birds or heights - but _yellow_?"

"I wish I was. I imagine that girl wishes it, too."

"That puts it you freaking about scorpions into perspective."

He smiles, a little sadly, "The human mind is a wonderful thing - unless it starts playing silly buggers with you and ruins your life." Setting down his coffee, he pushes himself to his feet, "Right, time to go and see if my rad-meter's readings can give me some clues over how much further we need to go."

"I'll make a start on some roots."

* * *

Bram is working quietly in the tent they've set aside as their temporary laboratory. He hasn't said much, but just works diligently, and thoroughly. Even Malcolm can see that he's throwing all his attention into it so he doesn't think about what happened to Charlie. Advising someone not to bottle things up is easy - actually _not_ bottling things up is the hard part.

"I think I've found the active compound," he says, eventually, "Mira's right - it'll work better in a concentrated form, so I'll establish an extraction and distillation process to get at it when it's dried. This should do in the interim - though I can't vouch for it without the proper testing regimen."

"We know that it had an effect when it was used on the men in Mira's group." Malcolm muses, "So it's not likely to do anything harmful - she reported that it helped."

Bram nods, and falls silent again, then turns, "I couldn't find a significant amount in the white species. There's a lot left over."

"I didn't bring it back for testing - Mira said it didn't have the active ingredients we need. I thought you might like to leave them in memory of Charlie."

At first, Malcolm thinks that he's made things worse again - but instead Bram's expression as he looks at his boss is a strange one - half pain, half gratitude, "I think I'd like that. I hope she forgives me."

"Why would she need to forgive you?"

"I let go of her." He says, painfully.

"From what I could see, the force of the water pulled her foot out of the boot you had hold of - it wasn't your fault. I know you think it was, and me saying otherwise doesn't mean much at the moment - but it really wasn't. She leaned out too far, and lost her balance when some rock gave way. It was a horrible accident - no one's to blame for it. She wasn't to know how soft the rock was."

"D'you think she suffered?" Bram looks up at Malcolm almost as though he's making an appeal.

"From what Mira said, no, I don't. If she wasn't knocked unconscious by the debris, it still would've happened very quickly. The force of water was pretty immense."

"What'll happen when we get back?" He has no idea - they won't have a body to bury in Memorial Field, come to that - there won't be a headstone for Hal Wicks, either.

"We'll have a service of remembrance, and their names will be added to the memorial stone at the base of the Command Centre steps, I imagine." Malcolm muses, "That's what it's there for."

It's late now - too late to go laying flowers, as God knows what comes out at night in this region. Daylight is generally safe - but darkness is not, so they instead carry the distillate that Bram has prepared over to the tent where Taylor is being held. In itself, it won't be a miracle cure - but it should stop things getting worse, and give his brain time to recover. Hopefully he might have regained some control by the morning.

"Do you think he'll accept this?" Malcolm asks, as Pauline regards the vial a little uncertainly.

"He's coming round, so there's only one way to find out. I'll dilute this in some water, so he won't realise what it is and try to spit it out. When he's been conscious, he's been very paranoid."

Behind her, he can see the Commander stirring as the grip of the sedatives wear off. His wrist is still cuffed to the crate - it's just too dangerous not to do it at the moment - and it's actually quite frightening to see the man who is, essentially, the father figure of their community in such straitened circumstances.

"Need a drink…" he mumbles, vaguely, as he emerges from the drugged fog, "Wash - where've you put the water bottle, I'm parched."

Paula hastily tips the distillate into a water-caddy, "Lieutenant Washington's on watch at the moment, Commander. She left this for you."

The link to the long-dead Lieutenant grants a degree of trust that no one else can muster, and Taylor gulps the contents down without comment. "Gah," he says once it's gone, "She's used too much iodine again."

He's still too drowsy to have noticed that he's been immobilised, but it won't stay that way, so Paula hastily tops up the sedative, and he's soon out again.

"Do you think it'll work?" Bram asks, nervously.

"No idea." Malcolm admits, "I suppose we'll only really begin to find out in the morning."


	16. Graveyard

**A/N:** Don't worry, Hossfan - Jim's not into collaboration. With the people he's dealing with being members of the community rather than invaders this time around, he's got to be careful how he deals with things for the time being. Boylan's come up with a novel means of communication, however, so I hope it raises a chuckle or two!

Thanks for your comments, Leona - Parker is one of those people who are very keen to have power, but don't know what to do with it once they've got it - and particularly don't appreciate just how much work is involved. He's made a lot of promises to a lot of people to get where he is, and sooner or later he's going to have to accept that he's got to keep 'em!

I think Malcolm has become a lot more self aware than he used to be - thanks to his relationships with his colleagues and with Max. That said, he's still perfectly capable of making things worse with a single badly chosen word.

I appreciate your reviews - thanks!

And on we go...now to find out whether that flower-power thing works!

* * *

Chapter Sixteen

 _Graveyard_

The atmosphere in the marketplace is still very subdued this morning, as Yseult carries Erin to nursery. She was very fractious again last night, clearly missing her daddy, and it was a struggle to get her to sleep. She has no doubt that her daughter's afternoon nap today will be quite a long one. At least she has the play and constructive activities of nursery to help her pass the time - for her mother, on the other hand, the worry is far deeper. The last time Malcolm went out into the Badlands, it had not been willingly, and he had come close to losing his life.

God, she misses him. Even the more annoying traits that are part and parcel of being with another human being. How long have they been out there now? She's lost track…

"Hello darling."

Startled, she looks up to see one of Bob Parker's closer cronies - though she's forgotten his name. Instinctively, her response is to back off - unwanted attention from men brings back bad memories she would rather not dredge up.

"I'm free this evening if you want to go to Boylan's." He drawls, lazily, "Keep you company while the other half's away." He makes no attempt to conceal his blatant staring at her bust, or the casual assumption that she would hook up with someone else while her husband is OTG. Or is he doing it because she's one of their so-called 'elite'? God knows - but all she wants to do is get away, and she hurries off, ignoring him, and his rather unpleasant laughter as it fades behind her.

Shaken, she collects her bicycle and rides as quickly as she can down to her compound. All sorts of nasty memories are stirring, and the sooner she's surrounded by her friends, and able to confide in Pete, the better. For all his cheerful campery, Pete is solidly built and muscular - if nothing else, she can look to him as an intimidating presence should that man really intend to continue bothering her. God - it makes her sound such a limp flower…

 _Don't even try to keep teasing me, that just makes you a whore!_

That horrible moment as Mike held her on the ground, trying to force himself upon her…to have someone else now threatening to do likewise is so frightening that she struggles for a moment to hold back the tears. If only Malcolm were here - someone to turn to, to confide in. He was there, and came to her rescue - and between them they fought back - but he's miles away, and now that she's safely down in her own compound, the thought of having to go back up to the residential complex is frightening - what if the man is waiting for her?

Pete is in the office when she enters, and his expression is immediately worried, "What is it, Max?"

For a moment, she can't speak, but then she makes herself, "One of Parker's associates - I don't know who - he was making suggestions at me. Inviting me to Boylan's while Malcolm's away."

"Seriously? He didn't do anything else did he? Are you alright?" he knows about Mike's attack on her in more detail than most - though only Malcolm knows all of it - and immediately he is protective.

"Just rattled." She admits, "He didn't approach me - but he was staring at me like he was undressing me with his eyes."

Now, Pete is angry, "We report him to Jim - and I'll make sure that you don't go anywhere without someone from the team until Malcolm gets back. Even if that's as far as he goes, it's unacceptable."

"Don't threaten him back, Pete - he's one of Parker's closest cronies. Based on what Jim thinks, if we try to challenge him, it could reflect badly for us. Parker's already using his friends as a kind of Secret Police. No one's been arrested yet, but Jim reckons it's only a matter of time. We've gone from presumed martial law to a police state - it's just no-one's noticed yet."

"Has anyone seen Parker since he got howled in?" Pete opts not to use the words 'voted' or 'swept'.

"Only Jim. Apparently he's treating Commander Taylor's office like a throne room - he's done absolutely nothing but issue orders from the moment he got in there, and he's not asking for any advice or guidance on the operation of the colony. People are going through the motions - but the only thing he seems to be really interested in is giving preferential treatment to his friends - and anyone who's prepared to fawn over him. Chris is frantic - the fields are half empty because everyone wants a bit of the action, so the people who aren't involved are trying to do it all, and there aren't enough of them. It's only been a couple of days - but if this goes on for too long, we could have a major problem."

"No one to tend the crops, and no one to bring in the harvest." Pete agrees, "Then we're seriously in the poo. That's the real sign of a bad leader - and I imagine it won't be long before he demonstrates that in lavish proportions." He slips an arm round Yseult's shoulders, "All we can do is keep our heads down and look for an opportunity to fight back once one presents itself. The last thing we need when Taylor gets back is a civil war in progress. If he's as crap a leader as his activities so far suggest, then he's going to end up being thrown out of the office by disgruntled field workers - probably armed with cliché farm implements - so we just wait for that and then remind people who _really_ knows how to run this place."

Yseult thinks it over, "Well, once that happens, I'll find that crony of his and forcefully introduce his dangly bits to my knee."

* * *

Mira has spent nearly an hour working carefully with the slowly wilting white flowers that Malcolm brought back from their foray out into the desert. The result is a very simple, but pretty, wreath that she hands to Bram, "Here. I know it's not much, but I think she'd appreciate that we're thinking of her."

He takes it, "That's lovely. Thank you."

They're standing at the far end of the cleft, where the debris has piled up against the small outlet into the gorge beyond. Rather than hit Bram with a nasty surprise, Dunham and Reynolds searched through the mess while he was busy with the analysis of the flower extract to ensure that Charlie's body had not been trapped in it - and found nothing. She had been washed through before the build-up got to the point that it blocked the gap to anything but the raging water. In some ways, it's a relief - there's no way to get her back to the colony so she can be laid to rest in Memorial Field, and it would have been painfully hard to have to leave her grave behind.

So they gather beside the tangled disaster of branches, stones and clods of vegetation, while Malcolm mumbles a few words that he hopes are suitable and appropriate, before Bram lays the small wreath over the blockage, his eyes tearful. So much for 'better to have loved and lost' - Malcolm recalls again how the thought that Yseult had drowned left him utterly devastated. He was lucky - she was rescued. Bram, and Charlie, however, were not.

With little else to do, they drift back to their respective camp duties. Malcolm goes back to analysing his radiation signatures, while Dunham organises a small party to see if they can find any water sources nearby that can supplement their condensers. Being sheltered, and well maintained, they're not likely to fail in the near future, but it's worth looking - after all, people do want to wash as well as drink.

The stock of purple flowers are drying very nicely on the large outcrop of rock that stretches over their camp and keeps the worst of the sun at bay, and Bram is again keeping himself busy by checking them regularly to ensure they reach the optimum degree of dehydration to get a really decent extraction. So far, the Commander hasn't come round, so everyone continues to wait and see if the distillate from yesterday is going to have any effect.

Being a lousy navigator, once Malcolm's happy with an estimated distance to the source, he needs Mira's help to triangulate it. With her assistance, however, it's a simple matter, and he looks at the plan that they retrieved from Hooper's records, "There." He says, pointing, "That looks more than promising - according to the topography, there's a deep depression here, and it looks like it covers a pretty enormous area. I'd say we're definitely looking at a superbolide impact site - and a pretty old one too. The depression's too shallow in comparison to the overall diameter of the crater rim, which means it must've filled in since, so we'll never find the remains of the bolide that formed it. Given the number of other depressions nearby, I think it was probably an air-burst detonation, but this is the primary crater left when the remains impacted."

Mira makes some more calculations, "I'd say we're looking at about a half day's drive to get there. I'm assuming that setting up camp isn't an option?"

Malcolm shakes his head, "No - we'll need to be in hazmat suits for this; the radiation will be deadly. I'm presuming that the crater's thick with baldanite, and that's been emitting theta particles since the last discharge, so it's been gathering in the depression. If we get too close and we're not protected, then it'll make us very poorly, very fast. We have to suit up, so camping isn't an option. For one thing, I don't have lead-lined tents in the stores."

She nods, "Fair enough. We go before first light, and come back after sundown. I'll make sure we set a sequence of beacons to keep us true: I can navigate using the stars, but that's not much help if we take a slightly wrong line coming back and smash a wheel on an outcrop of rock we didn't see in the dark."

The pair look up as Dunham approaches, "Doctor, Paula sent me - the Commander's awake."

* * *

The light in the tent is dimmed, as Taylor is squinting painfully, and prodding at his head as though he has a headache, "God, my head's splitting. What the hell happened?"

"Er…" Dunham struggles for an explanation, "You hit your head, Sir." He says, avoiding the confession until he has a better idea of how it'll go down.

"And how." Slowly, he sits up, "Must've been one hell of a concussion. Where are we?"

Paula hands him another water bottle, surreptitiously dosed with distillate, "We're out in the desert proper, Commander. We're currently on a large rock platform overlooking a gully."

"Why so high? Were we being followed?" He turns, "Mira?"

His tone is not hostile, which sounds hopeful.

"We were being tracked by six bambiraptors." She explains, "We came across this a couple of days ago - there was a storm somewhere out of earshot, so I wanted us up high. It's kind of become our base camp."

"And the raptors?" Again, he is no longer doubting her word.

"Washed away in the flash flood that the storm generated." She finishes.

"Sounds like a good outcome." He approves, "Malcolm, any further on the figurehead?"

He sits on a camp stool nearby, "Yes, Commander - we found the spot where it was located and we also found the ship's logbook. There were twenty survivors - but they all died in the desert, picked off by raptors, or dead of thirst."

"Jesus - that's hard." Taylor agrees, "Any casualties while I was out?"

Dunham looks uncomfortable again, "We lost Wicks to a bambi." He admits, "The perimeter fence shorted, and he was taken before anyone could do anything. We also lost Charlie two days ago - she lost her balance and went off the platform while the flood was coming through. She was washed away with the bambis."

Gradually, as he sips at the water and begins to feel more hydrated, Taylor takes in their expressions. Something's wrong - the way that they're looking at him. As though they expect him to explode like a bomb…

"Okay - it wasn't concussion, was it? What really happened?"

Now everyone's _really_ nervous. Hesitantly, Malcolm broaches the subject, "Well, yes - you were struck on the head, so it _was_ concussion. It was what you were doing when you were struck. You were trying to throttle me."

Taylor stares at him, "What the hell would I be doing that for?"

Now he's looking much more relieved, "What do you recall of the last few weeks? I mean right back to when we were still at the Colony - particularly about Lieutenant Washington?"

Taylor's eyes widen, "What do you mean? I haven't really thought about her for a long time - other than when I go to visit her headstone. Why - what's she got to do with all of this?"

Malcolm looks a little awkward, "We think that you have leptospirosis, Commander. There's evidence of parasitic activity in your blood, which means it's quite advanced - it's likely to have been a tick-bite a few months or so back."

Now he remembers - that red lump on his leg, the one he'd thought was just an insect…the tick must've fallen off. That'll teach him to wear shorts in long grass. Getting careless in his old age, it seems, "What's the problem with that? I haven't had any noticeable symptoms - I haven't felt like I've got flu or anything. Are you sure it's definitely Lyme's?"

Ah, it's worse. He can see it in the increase in tension that Malcolm's displaying, "Er, I'm afraid so." He says, a little hesitantly, "Paula did a test and picked it up. The thing is," God, he's wringing his hands now, "one of the symptoms of advanced Leptospirosis can be a form of dementia - it's curable, but only if it's caught in time. We think that's what was affecting you."

"And now it's not?" Taylor asks, "It can't've been _that_ easy to cure me."

"We haven't. Mira knows of a plant that gives an extract that suppresses the symptoms and slows the deterioration. We're hoping to use that to keep you with us until we get back to the colony where Elisabeth _can_ cure you."

Taylor sighs, "Okay - what was I doing?"

"You were convinced that Lieutenant Washington was still alive. To the point that you were delegating security matters to her over Dunham's head."

There's a pause, as Taylor takes in the news. He doesn't remember that - all he has in his head are vague pictures of travelling in the rover behind Malcolm and Mira, camping…sitting and looking out…

And then it dawns on him.

"It was because of me that Wicks died, wasn't it?"

Everyone exchanges uncomfortable glances, but Malcolm eventually confirms it, "It wasn't your fault entirely, Commander. You told Dunham to leave the roster with you, which he did."

"And I delegated it to Lieutenant Washington. Who wasn't there to assign it." Taylor finishes. Dear God - he's completely compromised. The only thing keeping him from leading them all to their ghastly deaths in the desert is being unconscious - or, it seems, drinking this plant extract. Shaken by the discovery, he looks very worried, "Malcolm - in case I go ga-ga again, I'm stepping down as expedition commander with immediate effect. I reckon you're already doing it - but you're in charge. Mira, I expect you to keep us alive. Dunham, I'm putting you in sole charge of the security team. Under no circumstances are any of you to let me give another order that isn't trivial until Doctor Shannon has fixed me. And that's my final order before I hand over."

He looks at the relieved expressions. They've probably been doing this on the quiet for ages - but now he's given them official sanction to do it, "One last thing." He adds, "All of you carry a sidearm set to stun. If I start refusing to cooperate, you have my permission to shoot me."

They look shocked now. Good.

"If you want to get up, Commander, there's nothing stopping you." Paula advises, "I think you just need some breakfast inside you, and as long as you keep taking the distillate, we should all be fine."

"Sounds good to me." He looks up at Malcolm, "Sorry I tried to kill you, Doctor."

* * *

Sitting quietly in the bar, nursing yet another coffee, Jim looks around for the man after whom the bar is named. The news of the falling out between Tom Boylan and Josh has gone around the colony at great speed, and - fortunately - no one seems to be surprised.

As he has formally signed the management of the bar over to Josh, choosing to concentrate entirely upon brewing, Boylan has effectively abandoned the place, so no one seems to notice when Josh sits down with his father, presuming that he's just going to complain about the fact that the doughty Australian has abandoned his post - and now only comes in to deliver consignments of booze. And that he's now charging for it.

"He's going to pop up to see Parker this morning." Josh advises his father, quietly, "He's known for not liking the Commander, so it's probably inevitable that he'd want to start getting in on the action with the people who've replaced him."

"How's he going to report in?" Jim asks.

"He's already modified his beer kegs to hide notes in them. When he's in with Parker, he'll make a note of everything and deliver the notes to me with the beer. Then we don't get spotted talking together. Apparently Parker's got all his mates wandering around watching everyone."

"He has. I've seen them." Jim agrees, "They're making sure that no one starts to get loud about the fact that they're not getting the elections that they were promised."

"I don't think anyone's getting what they were promised, Dad." Josh admits, "I've seen a few of Parker's pals in here, and they don't look happy."

Jim looks interested, "Really?"

"Boylan told me he's got Casey on watch as well. He's reported that they're seriously pissed that they're not getting all the privileges he was promising them - short hours, more pay, you name it, he offered it. And now he's up in the Command Centre doing a Napoleon."

"Huh?" Jim looks confused, "Why compare Parker with a dead French Dictator?"

"Sorry. I meant Napoleon the pig."

"That doesn't help, Josh."

"You've never read _Animal Farm_?" Josh looks surprised, "We read it in school. I think it was supposed to be some sort of comment on Russia - but I didn't really notice that the time: I was only ten. But it's about how farm animals have a revolution and throw the farmer out. Then the pigs take charge, but end up behaving like humans themselves. Napoleon is the one who takes charge and behaves like a dictator - at the end, the pigs start dealing with humans again, and the animals realise that they can't tell which is which anymore."

"That sounds cheerful."

"Yeah - but that's what Casey thinks is happening. Parker's got what he wants, so he doesn't care about the people who got him there anymore."

Jim thinks it over. That, of all things, doesn't bode at all well. Having made so many promises, Parker needs to start delivering, or it'll all go to hell pretty hard, and pretty fast. If his own cronies are thinking that they're being hard done by, then they're going to hit back - and the last thing he needs is to try and keep a lid on an impending civil war.

"I can get a note back to Boylan when he comes to get the empty kegs." Josh adds, quietly, "If there's anything you want him to do."

"At the moment, I just need to know what's happening, Josh." Jim advises, "I can't do anything until I know what we're up against."

"I'll get on it."

Elisabeth is waiting for him when he gets home to see if he can find some lunch in the fridge, "It's getting worse, Jim." Her expression is worried, "I've had people coming in with minor injuries insisting that they get treated ahead of urgent cases - just because they're one of Parker's entourage. We nearly lost a construction worker this morning because Zack Drummond demanded that we use derma-spray on a graze he'd picked up on his arm, and wouldn't let us do anything else until we did. I only use it for burns now because it's in such short supply; but he threatened one of my Nurses with the rest of the day in the brig if she didn't use it."

"That's crazy - why would he do that?" Jim asks - mostly rhetorically.

"He was throwing his weight around, I suppose." Elisabeth sighs, "Because he could."

He nods: that sounds about right - a demonstration of power; not authority - full on power. He's one of Parker's immediate cronies, and he expects to be as important. What better way to show it off than to force an entire medical staff to bend to his will - even to the point that someone else might die? Hell, these men really don't care about anything but having everything for themselves while everyone else does all the work. The only thing that he can be grateful for is the fact that most of the rest of the Agriculture department will soon begin to see it, and perhaps they can then take the colony back without bloodshed. There was far too much of that the last time they had to do it.

"The worst of it is that I can't do anything about it, Jim." Elisabeth snuggles against him, and he wraps her in his arms, "They won't listen to reason. If anyone says 'no' to them then they just dig their heels in even more. Even Weaver wasn't that bad: almost, but not quite."

They look up as the door opens, and Josh comes in. He has a place of his own these days, but his visits to his parents are regular enough for no one to comment if he pops in.

"Wow, am I interrupting a moment? I hope so." He grins, as he shuts the door. No sooner has he done so than his expression changes to one of concern, and the volume of his voice drops considerably, "Sorry. There's someone outside - you're being watched, Dad."

"Now why am I not surprised by that?" Jim sighs, "Anything from Boylan?"

Josh doesn't answer, but hands over a note on remarkably flimsy looking paper.

 _Shannon. I'm in. Tell me what you want to know. B_

 _PS. Eat this._

"Eat it?" Jim stares at Josh in bemusement.

"It's rice paper." Josh explains, one of the Bakers had a load imported to use for macaroons. It's edible - so there's no risk of it being found."

"He thinks of everything, doesn't he?" Elisabeth smiles.

* * *

Taylor has taken another dose of the newest batch of distillate, and it's proving to be even more effective, just as promised. Mira's mood is particularly improved, as he has regained his trust of her, and she seems much less prickly again.

The Commander's mood, on the other hand, is subdued, as he knows that two people in the party are dead: and certainly one of those losses was at least partly his fault. That the Badlands are dangerous is hardly news - but the point of the exercise was to keep people safe through good leadership, and he completely failed to do it. That he was unwittingly compromised by illness doesn't do much to help. From what Malcolm's told him, they knew something was wrong - but they couldn't prove it. Had he been himself, he might well have accepted their arguments and submitted himself for further testing to be sure - but he wasn't, and so their hands had been completely tied.

Breakfast this morning is another dubious feast of rehydrated egg, crackers and cereal bars. They have no chickens, so the entire colony has become used to the taste and consistency of dried egg, though they are now beginning to run out of the stuff, and the consignment that's come with the expedition is the last of it, as their supplies of protein are rather limited out in the desert. Most of the camp is still sleeping, as it's not even close to dawn yet, but Malcolm and Mira intend to start their search, and the distances involved mean that it's an early start if they want to get there and back in a day.

"So, what's today's plan?" Taylor asks, taking a swig of coffee substitute with a grimace.

"Mira and I are going out to see if we can locate the trigger point for the portal." Malcolm answers, "We have an idea of the direction, and the distances involved, based on the readings from my rad-meter."

He is keen to go with them, but after all that has happened previously, Taylor knows that it would be madness to risk it. The distillate seems to be working well, but that doesn't mean that it'll continue to do so, and he doesn't want to go off again while out in the middle of nowhere. Malcolm and Mira will have enough on their plates as it is.

"I've packed hazmat suits for us both - as there's no other protection from the radiation. If it becomes clear that we can't get there and back in a day, we'll come back first and gather something to use for shelter."

Taylor nods, approvingly, "That sounds like a good idea." He looks about, "Is the only source of water the condensers?"

"So far." Mira says, sounding a little worried, "Dunham organised a team, but things got in the way, so we haven't had the chance to check the rocks for any gathered pools."

At last - something he can do, "I'll get the security boys back on it. If we find something, I'll have Bram and Paula work on putting a purification protocol in place."

She nods, pleased, "Can you keep an eye on Bram? He got close to Charlie, and he was the one who failed to save her, so he's taken her loss pretty hard. It wasn't his fault - but when has that meant anything when you're the one who couldn't save someone? I think Dunham's on it as well, but the last thing we want is to find that we thought he was okay when he wasn't."

In spite of the deaths of the bambiraptors that were stalking them, Mira is careful to shine a strong light into the gully before they set down the ladder. Deserts are always far more dangerous at night, when predators are out and about, and the last thing they want is to find themselves fighting for their lives before they've even got to the rover.

As soon as they're out in the open country, Malcolm has the rad-meter out again, and Mira takes some bearings so that she knows their direction. They do, of course, have to find their way back again afterwards.

The sand is no longer purple and white, the lack of rain since their arrival having driven the plants back underground again for another year, but nonetheless, their surroundings remain majestically beautiful: rolling dunes spreading out before them between great outcrops of rock that stretch in an unbroken line ahead of them, offering resting places that seem almost to be the very twins of their own temporary home. They could - if they wanted to - move the camp closer, but Malcolm's expression as he checks the rad-meter suggests that they're best to leave it where it is.

"What?" Mira asks, quietly, as she concentrates on the route ahead, by her reckoning, they've been going for the best part of three hours, and the sun is getting rather high.

"There must be a concentration of other compounds in these rocks." Malcolm muses, "They've been shielding us. I think we should stop, and get suited up. I have a feeling that the levels are going to rocket once we get through this. Is there a pass? This range of hills is an ideal safety barrier - but the levels are starting to rise to a point that I'd rather not breach."

They stop for a water break, while Malcolm fetches out the suits. In the temperatures they're facing, he'd rather not have the bloody things on, but sweltering is better than radiation poisoning, so he's brought extra water to compensate. Wealthier corporations would have supplied suits with integral cooling systems - but their stock is courtesy of the lamented days when Terra Nova was regarded as something of a dumping ground for unwanted equipment, and thus the only distinguishing feature of their suits is their rather fetching shade of red.

"And the worst thing," Mira grunts, as she clambers back behind the wheel, "is that we haven't got enough water to shower when we get back."

Malcolm shudders at the thought - there is, after all, only so much that dry shower foam can do.

It takes a while to find a pass between the enormous ranges of rock, but as soon as they emerge, the rad-meter alarms, and Malcolm stares at the scene before them, "My God…"

The stretch of ground ahead must be at least thirty square miles. Entirely surrounded by mountains, it forms a gently concave bowl that suggests a once enormous crater long-filled. Whatever impacted must've been pretty large - and the volume of material it must've displaced is almost beyond comprehension. But it's not so much the ground itself, as what's there.

Mira squints at the astonishing array of items that lie in the centre of the great expanse of sand and rock. There must be at least fifteen ships of various size and type - from wooden hulled right through to iron - but most shocking of all is the sand-blasted remains of a propeller driven airliner that lies amongst the wrecks. When the hell did _that_ disappear?

"That looks like a Douglas DC 3, Malcolm." She says, as she drives the rover down into the crater, "God alone knows when that came through; they were built in the nineteen thirties, but they were still being used right up until the late twenty first century."

"How the hell do you know that?" He asks, fascinated, and irked, by her apparent superior knowledge.

She shrugs, "My grandfather was a pilot - he had a huge collection of model planes, and he used to talk to me about them all the time." Emerging from the rover, she approaches the aircraft, "There's a registration number here: N407D."

It means nothing to Malcolm, so he makes a note on his plex to research it later, and instead he sets out his equipment to measure the radiation around them.

"There's a hell of a lot of radiation, Mira." He says, worriedly, "Far more than I'm happy to be around for too long. The longest I suggest we stay is about twenty minutes - I'll leave some sensors at the edge of the mountain range to pick up if the levels fluctuate. They won't stay stable when we get to the trigger point - I imagine they'll go a bit wild before the portal fires."

Mira nods, "I'll get some pictures of the ships, too. I can't see any sign of corpses so far."

"If there are, then I doubt they'd be skeletons - it's so dry here that we're likely to find mummified remains - which I'd very much rather not see."

As Malcolm sets a few probes in the centre of the ship graveyard, Mira photographs the remains of the vessels. The earliest she can find looks like it might've sailed in the 17th Century, though anything earlier might well be concealed, as large ocean-going ships wouldn't have been prevalent prior to the age of exploration - most of the people sailing in the area wouldn't have been in anything larger than reed boats or canoes. While they could get large enough to sail phenomenal distances, they wouldn't have lasted here, and thus they have left no evidence of their existence. Either that or the larger vessels landed on them and crushed them.

"I don't like the radiation levels, Mira." Malcolm calls across, "Time to move, I think."

They set two more probes at the edge of the pass, then depart, pausing only to add a relay marker on the way. They know where their target lies, the radiation levels are high, and they're in a position to measure activity. Now, they just have to wait.


	17. Counter-Revolt

**A/N:** Thank you for your review, Leona - I have to say, being compared to a season 2 episode is the highest of accolades, and I'm glad you're enjoying! So far, Parker has proved to be all mouth and no trousers (to throw in a British colloquialism), but things are shortly to take a rather unexpected turn...

* * *

Chapter Seventeen

 _Counter-Revolt_

His expression rather embarrassed, Jim eats another of Boylan's missives. Frankly, he'd rather be eating a macaroon sat on top of the rice paper, but at least no one will find anything incriminating if he gets searched. He wouldn't put that past Parker right about now.

Their new so-called leader has yet to emerge to address the people who seemed so willing to hand over the reins, though his closest co-conspirators are in and out of the Command Centre so frequently it's like the hokey-cokey in there. Otherwise, heavy-set workers who really should be out in the fields spend their time standing around the place looking menacing, and everyone goes about their business very, very quietly indeed. It's going to be difficult to foment a resistance this time around - too many of the people they're resisting are a part of the community.

Casey Derwin has been busy with his observations, and it's largely thanks to his sharp ears and eyes that Boylan's been able to report just how tense things really are out there. People have woken up to the reality of their situation remarkably quickly, but those who are too overt about their discontent seem to have suffered from a major outbreak of assaults by persons unknown; and, consequently, protests have largely dried up.

In his assumed role as quisling and collaborator, however, Boylan's own observations are astute and interesting. It seems that it's not just the ordinary folk of the colony who are getting fed up with Parker's lack of interest in following through on his promises: even some of his own cronies are beginning to wonder if he's actually going to share the power that he was so keen to get hold of. For all those accusations of a remote 'elite' and 'martial law', his fellow planners were expecting at least a modicum of responsibility for something - and the fact that there hasn't been any appointment of a senior staff is becoming a real bone of contention. It's as though Parker assumes that the Colony runs itself, and all he has to do is sit at Taylor's desk and play games on his plex all day.

Matters are equally not improving in the infirmary, as one of Elisabeth's colleagues was punched yesterday by one of Parker's security thugs when he refused to use derma-spray on a small graze, and offered a band-aid instead. The fact that the stuff is in increasingly short supply, and only available for very specific uses, doesn't matter. They want privilege and preferential treatment and it's clear they'll use their fists if they don't believe they've got it.

He's been out for his morning run already, but he's promised to monitor the perimeter fence, so he heads out to make the rounds. Given the size of the colony, that's a _lot_ of fence, so he can escape the compound, and it's unwelcome scrutiny, for most of the day. Guzman and his team used to do it - but now they're all in the fields, so monitoring the safety of everyone from large, brutal bitey things is a one-man job these days.

Given that the fields cover the vast majority of the colony, the lack of people out there tending them is very worrying. Worse, even the people there are clearly being watched, so there's no hope of him going over to have a quiet word with one of the security team to see how things are going for them. It's ridiculous - they came here to escape this sort of garbage, didn't they?

His mood grim, Jim continues on his trek, working his way down through the carefully maintained gap between the fence line and the undergrowth that surrounds the fields. Well, the _formerly_ carefully maintained gap: it's looking pretty rough here, and if they don't get a clearing crew in soon, then the undergrowth will butt up against the fence, and patrolling will become utterly impossible.

And does Parker give a damn? Does he even know that it could be a problem? Probably not - but then, all that Jim can do is report it and hope that he can get through that inertia.

At least things are better as he makes his way through the woodland area managed by Pete. Even though there aren't people patrolling the fence line anymore, he and Louis are absolutely fastidious about clearance of undergrowth. Apart from anything else, it's a part of their coppicing regime, and he doesn't want anyone to come a cropper thanks to bad management on his part. Jim picks up his pace a little, as he's almost at Yseult's compound. That means at least he'll get a decent cup of coffee given that Boylan's bar is a four hour walk away.

She's busy at the forge when he arrives, working on a repair by the look of it. Her assistant, Ben, is holding a long piece of iron with a set of tongs as she bashes away at the other end with a hammer, striking sparks and bits of burnt slag away from the glowing point with each blow. The noise is such that she won't hear him if he calls to her, so he waits for her to stop, before offering a greeting.

Yseult looks up and lifts her goggles, then smiles at him cheerfully. It's probably a front, of course, even though they're as disregarded by the new regime here as they were when Weaver showed up with his brigade. No one here's going to be spying on anyone else - but they all know what's really going on, "There's only one reason you'd be here, isn't there?"

"Hell yeah - coffee. ASAP." He grins back.

It doesn't take long to get the coffee pot going in the 'office' shed, and he sits back in Pete's office chair as Yseult perches on her desk, "It's getting bad out there. The fence line's going to have encroachment before long." He sighs, "I can run it past Parker, but I don't know if he's got the balls to do anything."

She looks concerned, "How close is it to being overrun? I can get some of my lot working on it if it's dangerous."

"I wouldn't." He warns, "If you take action without orders, you could find yourself in real trouble. Parker might not be doing anything, but he's taking issue with anyone who does. If you do something on your own initiative, he's going to see its as a challenge to his authority."

"That's insane."

"Yep. True, though." Jim pauses, "Things are getting worse in the Compound, Max - Parker's just sitting pretty and thinking that everything's gonna land in his lap. Even his pals are starting to get antsy - they want to be the new senior staff, and he's just keeping it all to himself. Last time I was in there, he was just giving orders and expecting people do to it. No thanks for anything, no asking nicely. If you want a poster-boy for power going to someone's head, you've got one right there."

"But what can we do?" Yseult asks, worriedly, "I know I'm down here all day every day - but even when I'm in the marketplace I can feel the tension. Everyone's scared - but no one knows who to trust. If people want to try and ingratiate themselves with Parker, then they can do it by informing on neighbours. I'm amazed no one's done it yet - it's the fastest known way to evade suspicion for something, redirect your accusers to someone else. It'll happen sooner or later."

Jim looks equally worried. That hasn't escaped his attention, either. He's seen it too many times out on the streets of Chicago, and it's not as though he's never read a history book, "We just have to sit tight, I guess, and look for a crack in the armour. I've got a couple of experts watching them - and as soon as they see something we can use, they'll let me know."

Even now, he doesn't dare to risk naming them. Just because there aren't any of Parker's thugs in the vicinity, doesn't mean no one's listening. Jesus - _he's_ getting paranoid now.

"In some ways, I'm even more glad Malcolm's not here." Yseult admits again, "I dread to imagine what they might've done to him by now - he's not one for subtlety, and after what happened to his father, he gets very het up about political injustice."

"But you still wish he was, right?" Jim finishes, seeing her rather blurry eyes. He's not surprised when her answer is a nod; she's too close to tears to speak. He gets it - Maddy's just the same over Mark.

Rather than point it out, instead he hugs her close, "It sounds crazy - but he's in the safest place he can be right now. He's got a security team protecting him, Mira keeping 'em all alive and he's not exactly Mr Incompetent himself. We just keep it together until we find an opening, and then take the colony back. We've done it before, and we'll do it again."

"This time, with me helping." She adds with a watery smile.

* * *

Taylor stands beside Dunham and nods, "That looks pretty good. Stretch an awning over it to limit evaporation, and check over the water purifiers. I hate the taste of iodine." He is careful to frame it as a suggestion rather than an order.

As Mira had hoped, the rocks have come to their rescue again, a large gouge caused by a long-gone stream and a number of rock-falls has created a natural cistern, that is optimistically full of water. Unfortunately, it's mostly stagnant water - but they have the means to make it drinkable, so they can rely on that, and use the water condensers as an ongoing backup. They have enough to drink, enough to keep the waste compactors from getting too nasty, and even perhaps sufficient to allow the occasional wash to supplement the dry foam.

Now that he's taking the distillate regularly, Taylor is largely back to his old self - albeit with occasional memory lapses. The journey out to the camp is a shocking mess of blanks, as there are times when he can vividly recall incidents taking place - but others where he really can't remember a thing. Most of these absences appear to suggest that he was talking to Wash, and it's rather disturbing to realise just how many there seem to be. God above - he could've killed them all: thank heavens Mira came along; between the three of them, Mira, Malcolm and Dunham have kept the party largely alive.

There's no point regretting Wicks's death - it was an appalling accident caused by his illness; and he would never have allowed it to happen had he been fully _compos mentis_. As for that poor girl who was washed away - he is dismayed to realise that he's forgotten her name, so unaware was he of the party he was leading. Jesus, he should never have come - he's positively dangerous.

As he retreats back to the camp, he returns to his shelter and broods. He's always been pretty solidly against rule by committee - a military man through and through, he's seen the damage that he's been obliged to inflict thanks to committees; and he was perfectly content to lead from the front with the advice of his senior team. But now he's compromised - and that approach just isn't safe anymore. It looks like he's going to have to face the inevitable, and start laying the foundations for the future of the colony in a Post-Taylor Era. The last thing he wants when he meets his demise is to know that he's taking the colony with him.

Malcolm, of course, has been badgering him about it for years - he's never liked the whole 'military in charge' thing, and has never been backward about coming forward when it comes to offering his opinion on the matter. But, in the long run, he's right. While he's never seen himself as a King, Taylor is well aware that he is the leader, and his operation of Terra Nova along military lines is so utterly ingrained that the concept of doing it any other way seems quite impossible. The trouble is, the number of civilians now outnumbers the soldiers by a considerable margin, so the continuation of having a soldier in charge is becoming ever more untenable. He's going to have to start thinking about establishing a community council of some kind, and try and lay down some sort of constitutional document to protect the colony from anyone in future who might fancy their chances as a despot.

The sound of a vehicle entering the narrow gully rouses him from his contemplations and he emerges to see Reynolds and Travers lowering the ladders. Joining them, he waits for Malcolm and Mira to park up, retrieve their equipment and clamber back up onto their safe platform.

"Anything?" he asks, as soon as the pair have set down their bags.

"It looks like we've found the spot." Malcolm advises, leaning against a rock and stretching out his cramped legs, "There's a range of hills about three or four hours from here where an impact blew out a massive crater. It's mostly filled in now, but there look to be significant baldanite deposits - but there are mineral deposits in the hills which are preventing the radiation it's giving off from dissipating outwards. I've got some samples to see if I'm right, but it's almost certainly going to be a lead ore."

"And?" Taylor prompts.

"What that means is that there's a massive buildup of theta radiation in the depression - and that on its own would suggest that it's our ground zero. But we found a hell of a lot of additional evidence to back it up."

"Such as?"

Rather than answer, Mira fetches out her plex, checks that the images have saved, and then hands it over.

Slowly, Taylor works his way through the pictures: wreckage of wooden ships, bleached metal hulls, and then that aircraft… "Christ, that's a lot of wrecks."

"The aircraft has a number, Commander." Mira advises, "If you give me a few minutes, I can track down the aircraft history."

"Get yourselves some chow and water first." Taylor orders, "We can sit down with the research later."

He snorts with mild amusement at their looks of relief.

Night falls with that inevitable suddenness of deserts, and everyone is now sitting around one of the larger heaters, as the temperature has fallen equally quickly. While Malcolm has work to do to identify the mineral he's mentioned - though it's more an academic exercise than essential for knowledge - Mira has already found the information they wanted about the plane.

"I knew it was a DC3," she begins, "so what I've done is run it through some databases. I downloaded them into our data banks in case we found anything like this."

Taylor looks surprised, but approving.

"It was a passenger plane," she continues, "but it was on a positioning flight, so it only had the crew on board at the time. It took off from Fort Lauderdale, _en route_ to Havana, but it was lost from radar screens somewhere over the Caribbean sea. The wreckage was never found, and there was no indication of problems other than communication problems owing to static. That resolved after about ten minutes - but then, eight minutes later, it was lost."

"Sounds like it was caught in a portal, doesn't it?" Taylor agrees, "When did it happen?"

"September 1978." She pauses, and frowns, "That kind of blows the thirty years thing out of the water, doesn't it?"

"Not really." Malcolm says, "The thirty years thing is a generalisation - it won't be like clockwork. Sometimes something'll happen that might temporarily speed up the rate of buildup - perhaps a landslide uncovering more baldanite - and it happens sooner than usual, or maybe covers some up, so it's late. In this case, it was five years late: nature never does things to a fixed calendar the way that we do. In some ways, this is our chance to work out how much radiation's needed to fire a portal, so that we have a good indicator of when it's going to open. It's the same now - it could happen today, tomorrow - or next week. There's no way to know; but once I have measurements, I'll have the means to make better forecasts so a team can be ready to help if someone _is_ pulled through and survives."

Taylor nods. He's always thought of Malcolm as a 'science it to oblivion' kind of man - but in this case, it couldn't be clearer that there's a completely altruistic reason for his study. It might've been a research expedition when they set out, but not now. Now that he knows for sure that people can survive the trip though, what matters to him above all is that no one has to endure what the crew of the _Polly Constance_ endured - a fate that came horribly close to befalling him, too.

"I've set up sensors in the crater, and at the edge, with relays to get the signal back to us." He continues, briskly, "As soon as anything starts to happen, we'll know. We just have to sit tight, and wait."

"For how long?" Mira asks, keenly, "Our supplies aren't going to last forever."

"I've checked the inventory, Ma'am." Dunham interjects, "I've set aside stocks of rations for the journey back based on what we used coming in. What's left'll last us a week and a half - make it two if we don't go crazy."

"And how are we doing for stocks of my garbage-tasting meds?" Taylor turns to Paula.

She smiles at his not entirely inaccurate joke, "We've got a good stock from Bram's extractions, Commander. There should be just about enough to last as long as the rations do, as long as we're careful."

Malcolm, on the other hand, looks worried, "I don't know how long this is going to last for, Commander - but I can't leave here until the portal's fired up. If it _does_ bring something through, and there _are_ survivors, then we have to be here. I couldn't live with myself if we left someone to die in that crater. I really couldn't."

"If it's a choice between possible deaths and certain deaths, then I'm going to have to prevent the certain deaths every time, Malcolm." Taylor reminds him, "We're not going to be much use to survivors if we're on the edge of dying ourselves."

"I know - but…"

"Believe me." Taylor looks at his worried colleague, "I don't want to abandon people here either - but if we run out of rations, we leave. I know we can last longer without food than water - but lack of nutrition leads to tiredness, which leads to bad decision making. If those sensors haven't spiked by the time we need to leave, then we leave."

He is not surprised when Malcolm gets up and walks away. Irksome though it is, he gets why; but it's a stark reality. He's got to balance the needs of the expedition against the needs of people who may, or may not, come through a wormhole that may, or may not, open in the next few days. Of course, he hasn't read that logbook, and he hasn't faced near death from thirst - but nonetheless, he has to make that call - and should the need arise, he'll damn well make it.

* * *

It's strange how quickly that short cycle ride back from her compound to her home has changed from a pleasant interlude to an unnerving journey into uncertainty. Even though it's only happened the once, that unpleasant encounter with one of Parker's associates has singularly rattled her, and Yseult feels very uncomfortable as she pedals her bike along the track.

She's not the only one - several other women in the community have found themselves facing unwanted attention from men who were, until recently, far more gentlemanly than they seem to be now. They've been held in check by the conventions of the colony - but those conventions have been upended, and those who have friends in the right places no longer feel that necessary restraint, or fear consequences if they ignore it.

At least she has the pleasure of being reunited with Erin, who has spent a happy day engaged in constructive play with the other toddlers in the nursery. Everyone's doing their best to conceal the tension from the youngest colonists, and certainly the majority of the children seem unaffected, though Elisabeth is worried that the children of the new ruling faction have begun throwing their weight around, too.

Her daughter's speech is improving all the time, and she is now capable of simple sentences that can convey basic concepts such as having had a nice day, been require to eat buttered squash at lunchtime, which she loathes, and discussing the activities she has engaged in. Yseult reciprocates by telling Erin what she's done, and speculating over what her daddy's done while he's away. It could be anything - but even pretending that he's engaged in heroic combat with polka-dotted yellow dragons is better than silence over his whereabouts. God, she misses him.

It's even worse once Erin is in bed, and she's got no one to snuggle with on the sofa. She is used to a very tactile relationship with her husband, and to not have him nearby is an aching void that she longs to fill. That they are in the midst of a great upheaval in the colony that he knows nothing about just makes it worse.

Pete has taken to dropping in occasionally to keep her company, which she appreciates, and the sound of a knock on the door is welcome. What is _not_ welcome, however, is that same bulky brute who made suggestive comments to her, standing on the other side.

"What do you want?" her voice is half hostile, half nervous. She stands behind the door, looking out so that he can't stare at her body. It's not that she's inappropriately dressed - just that even a suit of armour isn't going to stop him from doing that whole visual undressing thing.

"Security search." He says, though his expression suggests otherwise, "Stand aside."

He's got to be joking - there's no one else present. So there's no way in hell that she's going to comply, "On what grounds?"

"For security." He says, as though she is toweringly moronic and lacks the intelligence to understand him.

"Not unless you have a security team with you." She answers, trying to speak firmly, "If you haven't got a warrant, then you can't come in."

He has no warrant, of course, but he weighs more than she does, and the force of his shove makes it clear that legalities are irrelevant.

Stumbling back, Yseult stares at him, "Who the hell do you think you are? Get out of my house!" It's not going to happen again. She's not going to let it happen again…

The man - God, what's his name? Jackson isn't it? She can't remember - stands in the open doorway, and again looks at her with that unpleasant expression that scared her the last time. Rather than cower, however, she reaches for the sword she forged after Niall died, which is mounted on a stand atop a nearby sideboard. Whatever it takes, she'll protect herself and her daughter. Even if she has to kill the man who has taken it upon himself to enter her home.

"I said," she advances, the sharp blade held firmly before her, "Get. Out. Of. My. House."

He smirks, convinced she won't use it, "You don't mean that." And his arm is stretching out, hand extended…

Panic takes over, and she lashes with the blade, " _Get out of my house! Get out! Get out!_ "

Volume alone is enough to catch attention, but the angry roar he lets out as her blade slices into his forearm is a powerful ground under the higher pitch of her scream, and doors are opening all along the gravelled street. It's enough to deter him, and, clasping his arm to his chest, he bolts, leaving her slumped against the doorframe, trembling from head to foot. Why her? Why is he doing this to her? Is it something about her that makes men want to exert power over her in some way? Or is it just them? Or what?

She can't begin to figure it out, but her legs buckle, and she sinks to the floor in tears as her neighbours emerge and come to her aid.

* * *

Jim is furious. Fuming. Enraged. Whatever one wishes to call it. While he's aware that a number of single women, be they unmarried, separated from loved ones or - even worse - widowed, have reported low level harassment, Yseult having her house forcibly entered is the most serious attempt yet. His primary concern is that, had she not had that sword handy, she might not have been able to prevent him from harming her. What the hell's going on - is there something in the water? Admittedly, living in such a small community is going to lead to people finding out if someone tried it while Taylor was in charge and there was a clear system of rules in place, but why do people feel it's okay to do it now?

Based on the descriptions, it's only a very small number - three at the most - who are engaged in such ghastly behaviour. The others are throwing their weight around, too - but at least they're not leaving the female colonists afraid to open their doors at night. The worst of it is that there's absolutely nothing he can do about it. Given the authority - which he once had - he would've slung the three of 'em into the brig and threatened them all with spending rest of their lives on cesspit duties. Now, however, all he is allowed to do is report it to Parker, and sit helplessly while nothing is done.

The latest missive from Boylan isn't helping much - he's in, yes, but they're not trusting him to the extent that he needs in order to be absolutely certain that he can operate with something akin to impunity. All he can do is report that the garden is becoming progressively less rosy with each passing day, as the band of seven men who plotted to run the colony now consists of one man and six griping hangers-on who haven't had their promised piece of the pie.

Certainly Yseult has been so shaken by the invasion of her home - and he knows it's Tom Jackson who did it - that she has retreated to stay with Maddy, and they now house-share, giving one another reassurance, and secure in the knowledge that they are only a few doors away from the Shannons if they need assistance. That none of the perpetrators are facing even the smallest degree of censure does nothing to assure them that they are safe - and she now travels to her compound on foot, escorted by Pete, or Ben, or Louis, rather than rides there on her bike.

He's been around the colony again in the last couple of days, and things are getting worse around the fence line. While it's not going to enable a carno to get in - or even a slasher, come to that - smaller creatures could well be able to sneak in undetected, and that could cause all sorts of havoc. He's seen the sort of gaps ovosaurs can get through, particularly youngsters. He needs a team of experienced loppers to cut back the vegetation to a safe distance without damaging the plants themselves - hell, even a team of security guards with sickles will do at this point - but Parker just seems to expect him to organise it, and no one who isn't already working in the fields will listen to him. As far as they're concerned, it's a great opportunity to get paid for doing jack - standing around, going to Boylan's to get coffee and insult Josh, and believe themselves to be far more important than they really are. Yeah - once Taylor's back, he's looking forward to watching them cleaning out the sewage treatment plants.

Still, Parker expects him to report, even if he doesn't do anything in response to them, so he trudges up the steps towards the Command Centre, ignoring the scowls from the heavies that guard the way. As he climbs, he can hear raised voices - though what's being said is largely masked by the sheer degree of colourful language that is liberally seasoning the argument. All he can fathom with any certainty is that someone is most definitely not happy with someone else. Rather than risk being caught eavesdropping, however, he hangs back until the joint tirades of expletives draw to a halt. Chances are that he'll end up in the brig if they think he's been listening.

Eventually, matters draw to a close with neither side apparently victorious, or defeated. Instead, the doors slam open, and Tom Jackson emerges in a clear state of high dudgeon, elbowing his way past everyone as he descends, his face the very picture of 'being like thunder'. While Jim has no idea what they were arguing about, he can guess; and leaves it a bit longer before resuming his ascent to find out if there's any damage up there.

Parker looks flustered, and a little tipsy. There is a tang of cider in the air, which suggests that he's been rather busy sampling some of Boylan's finest, and it's clear that there was some sort of tropical idyll going on before Jackson barged in and wrecked it, "What do you want?"

"Er, just reporting in. The fence line…"

"Screw the fence line. If you haven't got anything else to tell me, you can get the hell out." Ah - perhaps the alcohol is to cushion the effects of heavy responsibility. Things aren't the easy ride he was expecting, and now he's resorted to booze to hide from it. It wouldn't be the first time Jim's seen someone crumble under the weight of authority. Even if he did expect everyone to carry him, finding out that they won't is one hell of a rude awakening, it seems.

With nothing else to report, however, Jim retreats. It's astonishing - he's seeing the entire life cycle of a failed revolution at high speed. Most forcibly installed regimes take a bit longer than this to fall apart. But then, Terra Nova is something of a world community in microcosm, so it looks as though the rise and fall of a dictator happens at the speed of a fruit fly's life cycle as well. The one good thing about that is that it means they might have nipped the whole damn thing in the bud by the time Taylor gets back - assuming, of course, that he's not gone completely off into fairyland by the time he does.

Boylan is delivering another one of his smaller aluminum kegs by the time he's at the bottom of the stairs, and he watches as one of the stronger guards hefts it upstairs to deliver it to the already drunk man within. While he knows that those who most crave power are usually the ones least fitted to wield it, to describe Parker as the poster-child for the concept - on top of the _other_ concepts that they've made him the poster-child for - seems appropriate.

He watches as Boylan gives him the required scowl and superior look, before returning to his small brewery, and makes his way back through the market place. Casey's stall isn't as well stocked as usual, and he has fewer customers as a result - but then they just distract him from his spying, so perhaps it's not all bad. He doesn't catch Jim's eye as he sits quietly in his power-chair, but nonetheless they acknowledge one another and their shared purpose. All Jim can do is keep his head down, and await another edible missive from his spies.

The atmosphere at the dinner table is subdued to say the least. While Elisabeth has cooked an excellent dinner, and the diners have certainly demolished it, conversation is sparse and dies out as quickly as it begins. Even the little ones are picking up on it, as both Elisabeth Rose and Erin have been very quiet, too. Ironically, it's supposed to be a reassuring family gathering for Maddy, Zoe and Yseult to escape the unnerving sense of oppression at home.

Parker emerged from his eyrie briefly during the afternoon to shout furiously at the people down in the market below - some incoherent rant about how they were all ungrateful for his leadership, how they all deserved to be in the brig - no, _expelled entirely_ for such ingratitude - and that if things didn't improve, he'd be expecting confessions from the conspirators that were doubtless lurking amongst the gathered people. It would've been comical had it not been a reasonable assumption that he might well follow through on the threat if so minded.

Consequently, everywhere's absolutely dead tonight. Josh has closed the bar early and gone over to Skye's Mother's place for the evening, as she is as worried as every other single woman in the colony. In the space of a week, they've transformed from a vibrant community into a captive population afraid of every shadow - for fear of punishments that haven't even been carried out yet. It seems that Parker is too indolent even to bother sending people to the brig. As he's not delegated that responsibility, no one knows for sure if they have the authority to do it either, so threats are delivered, but not carried out. Well, not yet, anyway. In some ways it's something of a minor miracle that no one's been locked up.

Both Maddy and Yseult are clearly nervous of going back to the Reynolds house alone - which annoys Jim all the more. This is supposed to be a safe place, but people are now feeling so threatened that they don't want to be outside at night - it's crazy. Even more crazy - _he's_ not comfortable being outside on his own in front of the scrutiny of hostile eyes. How the hell did that happen so quickly?

And he has no answer.

* * *

The sun is bright and already quite high as Jim emerges for his morning run. Usually, the early shift is busy, but that weird self-imposed curfew has truly bedded in, and even the most dedicated stallholders are nervous to be out and about. His own sense of discomfort is remarkably strong, as he feels as though he's not meant to be outside - but no one has demanded people stay indoors, so he is at least attempting to create an example. Not that it's a particularly good one.

By the time he returns, he's seen not a single soul - not even the hangers on - and his home is very uncharacteristically quiet. Zoe is usually far more cheerful than she is today, and that cuts deep. She hasn't been like this since they were in Chicago - and he finds it hard to see her so subdued.

Instead she looks over her homework silently, checking what she's written for both content and spelling; as though that is a helpful solace in an unfriendly world. He catches Elisabeth's eye, and she looks equally worried; Zoe has always been highly sensitive to the moods of those around her, and even though she has largely lost that credulity she had as a child, that's been replaced with a great deal of perceptiveness that he's convinced she's mostly inherited from her mother. There's no way she'd miss the changes that have swept her home, as it's even being played out to some extent at school.

For the first time in nearly a year, she doesn't demur when he offers to walk her to class, and they dawdle together in worrying silence. As they make their way to the school, however, Jim can sense it - something's wrong. Something's changed overnight - but he can't figure out what it is.

Seeing her into the school, Jim makes his way back to the marketplace - and his foreboding becomes worse. There's no sign of life up at the Command Centre, and even the usual heavies don't seem to be around. After a week of lording it in his privileged hidey-hole, Parker seems to be nowhere in sight. Jim's been a cop for long enough to know that this isn't a good thing - and his worry jacks up another notch or six.

In spite of himself, he wants to know for sure what's going on; but that pervasive sense of discomfort at how things are makes him highly nervous of doing so on his own - if something _has_ gone south, the last thing he wants is to be blamed for it. If he's going disturb Parker, then he wants an audience to vouch for his motives.

Yes - he's definitely getting paranoid. But nonetheless, better safe than sorry. Fortunately - as though on cue - Reilly hoves into view, crossing the marketplace on her way out to the fields to take up whatever crappy job she's been given to replace her usual work in security.

"Hey, Mr Shannon."

"Hey, Reilly - can I ask a favour?"

She looks intrigued, "Sure - what do you need?"

"A reliable witness."

The pair walk together though to the residential area where Parker lives. No one has better accommodation here than anyone else, so he's not moved out of the house he had before he declared himself the effective King of Terra Nova. It's likely that he would've wanted to - but where would he go?

The one thing that has marked him out, however, has been the presence of a couple of his personal thugs outside the door - presumably in return for some sort of privilege or other - high wages, perhaps, or the promise of more of a say in the running of the colony. God knows. What is more important is the fact that neither of them are there - normally they're there all the time, as though they were guarding Buckingham Palace. Frowning, Jim turns to Reilly, who shrugs in equal confusion. Nervously, he knocks - and gets no response.

Their presence is catching interest, and people are gathering, wondering what's going on, unsure of what to do. Hoping to avoid the risk of being creatively 'blamed' for some calamity or other, Jim turns to the arrivals, "Anyone seen Mr Parker today?"

He can see people exchanging glances, looking at one another in as much ignorance as his own - though whether it's genuine or not is another matter. At least he's got a crowd now.

Another knock. More silence. This is getting scary: he's kicked down doors with angry dealers on the other side, armed to the teeth and keen to kill the first person through, but he doesn't want to do it with someone who can't do anything at all without someone standing behind him and looking tough? Enough, already. Cross now, Jim squares his shoulders, and punches the override.

The house is dark, and still. It's like there's no one in - but if Parker's not in, and he isn't in the Command Centre, then where the hell is he?

Slowly, carefully, the two explore room by room, until Reilly looks into the bedroom, "Mr Shannon. He's in here."

Her expression says it all.

Neither of them go in - it's all too obvious that the occupant is deceased, and they neither of them want to risk being accused of being the cause. Instead, Jim reaches for his comm unit, "Elisabeth - we need you at Parker's house."

" _I'll be there as quick as I can. What's wrong with him?_ "

"He's dead."


	18. Spikes

**A/N:** Thanks for the reviews! Hossfan - your questions will be answered shortly! Leona, fear not, this is the last chapter of part two, and this is a three part tale, so there's another part to come. And as if I'd dare kill off Commander Taylor - the very idea! ;-)

The fun part here is making up science-y stuff. It's probably complete nonsense; but, frankly, this is fiction, so science can do whatever it wants. So there! :-)

Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter Eighteen

 _Spikes_

Taylor sits quietly in the shade from the outcrop that protects their camp from the sun and watches quietly as everyone around him gets on with their work. It's been hard to stop giving orders - even framing those orders as suggestions or ideas - and that very difficulty is giving him cause for concern.

He's always tuned out Malcolm's gripes about democracy and accountability, in much the same way as he used to tune out the man himself when he first arrived. They're two very different people, used to operating in very different ways. Sure, the Doctor has mellowed almost beyond recognition in the years that he's been in the Cretaceous - to his mind, it's not possible to come to Terra Nova and _not_ be changed by the place - both thanks to the nature of his work, and the fact that he took up with Yseult; but that principle remains very strong in the man, and Taylor is beginning to come to the realisation that, to a large degree, he's right.

He sips at his water, rendered unpleasant by another dose of that distillate that's keeping him from losing his marbles again, and sighs to himself. If Doctor Shannon can't cure him when he gets back, or - if the damage is too far gone - he's not fit to continue to lead, then what the hell happens to the Colony? The leadership of Terra Nova has always been based on a military model, largely because the first people to come through were military. Once he became unfit to lead, he'd always assumed that a new commander would be appointed and come through the portal to take over.

And then reality had struck, as the men who had bankrolled the entire enterprise in hopes of profit finally took steps to collect on their investment. With the loss of that conduit for new colonists, and a new leader, Taylor has always put the problem of succession to the back of his mind - even when that problem has been set square in his lap by his own senior team. No one wants to consider their own mortality - even a man who's faced it as often as he has. The outbreak of peace in the Colony drove such morbidity to the back of his mind, and he made the mistake of sitting pretty. That can't continue - but how the hell does he hand over power, and to whom?

He can see Mira busy cleaning her pocket sextant and checking the sight. As she looks up from her work, he catches her eye and beckons her over.

"Commander." Her voice is respectful, and has lost that dreadful stiffness that marked their conversations from the moment she turned her back upon the Colony to fulfil the task for which she had been recruited. In response to his gestured invitation, she sits beside him.

"I don't think I've thanked you sufficiently for keeping this expedition alive, Mira." He says, quietly.

She shrugs, "I had two reasons to be here - to be a guide, and to keep the expedition alive." There's a slight, amused twitch of the lips.

He sits back, "I don't think there's a place for people like us in Terra Nova anymore."

"Us?" she asks.

"Independent minded. Commanders - people who lead without question." His eyes are distant, "We need a militia, sure, but who looks after the Colony after I'm gone?"

"And you've only just thought of this?" Mira looks amused.

He shakes his head, "No - I've only just accepted it. It's always been shoved to the back of my mind. I started this place running - protected it when I found out what was intended for it. Trouble is - I can't keep it shoved to the back of my mind anymore. Not when my mind's falling apart."

"We've stopped that."

"For how long?" he turns and looks at her now, "How much damage has it done already? Yeah, you've stopped it getting any worse, but what if the damage is too deep? I've got blanks in my mind that stretch back for weeks - and there's no guarantee that's gonna improve when we get back and Doctor Shannon gets to work on me. I can't lead if I can't trust myself not to go crazy again - so who leads instead of me?"

Mira doesn't answer at first, clearly thinking the problem over. In spite of their differences with one another, there's that equality - that sense of being 'the one in absolute charge' - that unites them. Each is used to having the entire control over their communities, and being absolutely unquestioned in doing so. That is no longer appropriate for the community that remains - a growing civilian population that doesn't take so kindly to military discipline.

"I think the time's come to hand over control to the civilians." She says, eventually, "It'll be hard - they won't necessarily go the way we expect them to, or want them to - but if this place is going to survive in the face of everything that's ranged against it, the sooner we get people running it who were here from the beginning, the better. If we don't, then there's no leadership legacy to build on - and we end up with people in charge who haven't any idea how the colony works. Everyone reports only to you, don't they?"

He nods, "They do - but you need to have someone in charge."

"Yes, that's true - and there's always the danger of that someone being someone who shouldn't be; but that's the risk you take with democracy, isn't it?"

Taylor looks up at the outcrop above their heads, "I guess so. I just see what we've built, and I don't want to leave it to fall into ruin. There are a lot of lives resting on this place succeeding."

"Then the sooner you take steps to lay some foundations to prevent the place collapsing, the better." Mira comments, though her expression suggests she knows full well she's not telling him anything he hasn't figured out for himself already. Perhaps she sees that as her job in all of this. It's not that he doesn't know he should do it: he does. It's just that he doesn't want to face it, "You've got a senior staff who support you all the way - and they're loyal. They know how the Colony works just like you do."

"Yeah, I know." His smile widens, "Let 'em educate another leader while I sit back with a cocktail. Retirement doesn't suit me, Mira."

She laughs, "Not even with a paper umbrella in the cocktail?"

He snorts with equal amusement, "If there's an olive in it, I might think about it."

"And about the Colony?"

"Sure."

* * *

Elisabeth's expression is grim as she emerges from the bedroom, "I don't think this was down to natural causes, Jim." She says, quietly, "I can't say for certain at this point what the cause was, but I don't like the bruising around his mouth and nose. It looks almost as though he was smothered - but I need to check for defence injuries. I can't believe he didn't struggle if someone was stopping him from breathing."

While this is much more his territory, Jim remains nervous. If it really _is_ murder, then the last thing he wants in the current, febrile atmosphere is to set off a bout of wild finger-pointing. He's been in situations like this in Chicago, and they never end well. While Parker has spent most of his short time at the helm being invisible and - latterly - drunk, those who helped him to grasp the leadership of the Colony have been entirely more active, and his sudden death could well spark a dangerous amount of infighting that might lead to yet more deaths. He may be no politician, but he's a damned good cop, so at least he's no longer feeling he's completely out of his depth.

Already he is busy thinking of his next move. His suspicions are leaning very much to an act of violence, and assembling a list of potential suspects. Given what he already knows about Parker's activities, that list is not particularly long, but until he has a firm assessment of what really happened, that's as far as he can go. He sighs inwardly, it's at times like this that he could really use a CSI. Elisabeth's autopsy can tell them how he died, but not a great deal more than that.

The sound of footsteps at the door captures his attention, and he turns to see Tom Jackson, with two of those heavy-built men entering the house, "What's going on?" he glares at Reilly, "You should be in the fields. Get out."

She pauses briefly to look at Jim, who nods: best not to provoke the man. Her expression bland, though he knows she's angry at the order, she departs.

"Well?" Jackson glares at Jim, "Why are you in here?"

"I was passing." He says, refusing to sound intimidated, "There were no guards outside, so I knocked and got no answer. When I punched the override, we found him in the bedroom." He nods at the doorway, "He's dead."

His expression still hostile, Jackson makes his way to the door and looks in, "Right." He says, "You've done your duty. Get back to work."

"Pardon?"

"You heard me. You found him: he's dead. We'll deal with it."

"We need to do the autopsy - find a cause of death."

"Looks like natural causes to me. He went to bed and carked it."

Jim frowns, worriedly; what the hell is Jackson doing? While it's pretty damned obvious that he's already manoeuvring to take over, if he doesn't want to have people trying to fight him for it, then he's not going about it in the right way. Does he really think people will just accept his word? Particularly given that Elisabeth's already come and seen the body? If nothing else, that'll spark questions - particularly once the other men who might want a piece of the pie find out.

He sags inwardly. Of course that's what he's doing. Parker's dead - and Jackson's the only one who knows. No wonder he wants everything shut down on this - but what really worries him now is who is going to be the scapegoat for this if Jackson wants to push the 'murder' card. As long as he sticks with the 'natural causes' excuse, people will be safe - and that's what counts right now.

Rather than precipitate an accusation, Jim opts to retreat, beckoning Elisabeth to join him. She doesn't object - she senses the risk just as he does. Chances are that there'll be a funeral before the day's out, and any chance of knowing what really happened will be buried with the body. They're being watched as they go, but he doesn't need to ask his wife to act as though they're doing as they're told, and not discussing the matter. She's no fool: they can fret about their discovery when they get home.

Needless to say, as soon as the door is shut, Elisabeth turns to him, "Believe me, that wasn't natural causes, Jim. Even my preliminary examination suggests it wasn't. I'm still considering the smothering theory - primarily because I managed to get a glimpse inside his mouth: his upper labial frenulum was torn."

"Which means…what, exactly?" Jim asks, a little nonplussed.

"A frenulum is a flap of skin which holds organs together." Elisabeth explains, "The one I mean is the one that holds your upper lip to your gums."

Immediately, he pushes at the one in his mouth with his tongue, and shudders at the thought of it being torn.

"It's not that difficult to damage - it's just a flap of skin - but couple that with the bruising around the mouth and nose, and I'd say that someone stood over him and pinched his nose while blocking his mouth. The tear occurred while he struggled to free himself. It's not conclusive, I know - but as far as I'm concerned, Bob Parker was murdered. Without the means to check for DNA samples under his fingernails, though, I can't give you any suggestions as to who was responsible."

"I've got about six firm suspects." Jim admits, "Parker pissed off the guys who pushed for him - and there are too many people who were trying to get in with him by being bodyguards and all of that crap who might've done the dirty work for someone else. I'm willing to put every salary credit I've got - and all my remaining terras - on it being one of them. The only things is - there's no way to know which one it was."

"Tom Jackson?" Elisabeth asks, "He was the first on the scene, after all."

He shakes his head, "I don't want to go down that route - it could've been dumb luck that he was passing. Chances are the killer wanted the word to get out before supposedly stepping up and taking charge. It could be that Jackson got there first - but if that's the case, I wouldn't rule out more violence until they sort it out between themselves. I can't protect the colonists from that if I don't have a security team."

"I doubt people are going to be outside while that's going on." Elisabeth sits down on the couch, "It leaves us blind again, though, doesn't it?"

Jim sighs, and sits alongside her, "Boylan's gonna have to start all over again with whoever takes charge next. God, this is crazy - I thought this sort of nonsense happened more slowly."

"There's barely twelve hundred of us, Jim." She reminds him, "Fewer people to subdue, I suppose. Once people found out that they were going to get beaten up if they protested, they shut their mouths pretty quickly - and there are always people who want to protect themselves by redirecting hostility towards others. It just happens more quickly in a community of this size. No matter how much we want to believe that we're better than we were in the Holocene, events have proved that we just carried the problems here with us. It's up to us to recognise that and rethink how we live - but not everyone's done that."

He slips his arm across her shoulders, "I suppose we assumed everyone in agriculture was living in FarmVille, right?"

She nods, "We're happy - so it's easy to assume that everyone else is, too. The men who were looking to step into the place of Commander Taylor were doing basic things like tree lopping and fruit picking. People like us must've looked like we were living in another world. It looks idyllic - but it's hardly challenging to the intellect, is it? Here are you and I, reporting to the Commander, making decisions that affect the lives of colonists, while the most difficult choice they're allowed to make is whether a pear's ripe enough to pick."

"Maybe they should be recognised for that." Jim muses, "I know I can't tell when something's ripe - and God help any plant I try to prune."

"Perhaps." She smiles back at him, fondly, "But first we have to get through to them that they need to go back to doing it."

Jim looks nervous. She's right - but then it's pretty obvious. The problem is that nothing short of a major disaster's going to do that - and that's he last thing that he wants.

* * *

Malcolm reviews Dunham's inventory with care, partly because he wants to be sure that they can survive here for as long as possible, and partly because he doesn't have much else to do. The probes he left behind are still signalling, and showing intense levels of radiation that should - all things being equal - be triggering a portal. He's read all of the papers that were written at the time that the artificial portal was opened, and certainly the radiation in the hollow is more than enough to spark one off. The only problem is, he has no idea if there's something specific that triggers a wormhole, or whether it just gets to the point that it can't take any more and just spontaneously sparks into life, in the same way that a buildup of charge in a thundercloud has to drain somewhere, and so emits a lightning strike.

Between them, Dunham, Mira and Paula have worked out a careful regime of rations that will keep them at their peak, while not creating any wastage. Even so, the most that he can do is remain there for another week and a half, before they must leave if they're going to get back to the colony before the rations run out. God, it's frustrating.

Closing down the inventory file, he summons up some images of his wife and daughter, and looks through them for a while. No matter how interesting the investigation, no matter how determined he is to prove a decent leader - the one thing that cuts through it all is just how deeply he misses them both. There was a time when he had no one, and thus this would've proved to be nothing more than a major outbreak of science - but that was then, and he was the poorer for it. That said, he really has left most of his heart at home.

He looks across to where Bram is working on another batch of distillate, aiming to improve the purity so that the extracts they have will last as long as possible. There's no guarantee that the stocks will be sufficient to get them back to the Colony, and none of them want to have to try and contain Taylor again if they don't have to. It's not good to keep someone sedated long-term. Besides, no one knows how close they are to the point of no return with the damage to the Commander's brain, and the worst thing would be for them to reach home, only to find that Elisabeth can't do anything at all.

Regardless of his complaints about the lack of representation for ordinary colonists, Malcolm is well aware that there really isn't anyone who could replace Taylor. Not yet, at least. The entire setup of the place revolves around his leadership, so what the hell do they do once that leadership is lost? Most people would probably look to Jim - himself included - but would the Shannon Patriarch want to shoulder that responsibility? Probably not - though he would be more than capable of doing so if the need arose. He's quick thinking, able to make difficult decisions, and has that remarkable affability that has won him friends, and respect, across the Colony. He just wouldn't want to do it. Malcolm is not blind to the phenomenon of the least capable leaders being the most desperate to try.

Almost instinctively, he reaches out and touches his fingertips to the close up of Yseult's face. He has become so used to her presence, and that sense of endless tactile contact between them that its absence fills him with a deep, lonely aching that no amount of pictures and daydreaming can assuage.

Again, as it does every ninety seconds, the main probe that he left behind in the crater clicks to remind him that it's still working properly. Idly, he sets the plex aside and looks at the readings: still stable - though the particle count has gone up slightly. He needs instability - that's what'll almost certainly trigger the wormhole into life - but that's the one thing he's not getting. And thus he is obliged to sit around and wait for something that might happen in the next minute, or the next hour. Or not until next year - he just doesn't know. How much more things can continue before something tips the balance and sends things wobbling, is anyone's guess. Perhaps he should take bets, or something.

He is distracted by the tinkling of glass as test-tubes are gathered together, "That's the last of the roots, Malcolm." Bram advises, sounding tired, "I've got this as pure as it's going to go, so hopefully we can use smaller doses. I'll transfer these samples into a bottle for Paula."

"That's great. Thanks Bram." While he is grateful, inwardly he curses a little. Having that work to do kept his assistant focused on something other than his grief. Without that, there are no other projects that he can hand over to keep that going. Bram's not a physicist - he's a bio-chemist - so measuring particle emission will only go so far as he can see what's being emitted, but he lacks the direct expertise to interpret what those emissions might mean. Trying not to sigh too loudly, he looks at the readings again, "Woah."

"What?" Bram looks up, pausing from his pouring so as not to spill anything.

"The particle count's gone up again. I think we're getting close - it's almost like a domino effect. It reaches a certain point of saturation, and then things start to go out of control, as though the existing accumulation is fuelling decay at a faster rate. God, is that even possible?" Intrigued, he starts tapping at his plex, making calculations. No - that's not possible, but it may be that something within whatever isotope the baldanite is becoming _does_ throw out particles more quickly. The trouble is, not being present to examine the site, he can't say for sure if it's true. What he can be sure of, however, is that something's going on - and it's likely that he's witnessing the first stirrings of the trigger.

"I think it's starting, Bram." Reaching for his comm unit, he flicks it on, "Commander Taylor, I think you might want to see this."

* * *

There's been nothing all day. No news, no rumours. No people, really. As soon as word got round that Parker was dead, everyone retreated to their homes, battening down the hatches against any unpleasantness that might arise. So far, no one's come to see him - in spite of his expectations, as he is the only one who can get into the weapons store - and he has spent the entire time wondering nervously whether there are likely to be more deaths before someone does.

Elisabeth is doing her best to distract Zoe, working with her on her latest homework project, as the school certainly isn't open. He isn't surprised that it's not working. None of his kids are dumb, and Zoe is by far the most alert to the moods and concerns of others. Consequently, she speaks quietly, and only in response to Elisabeth's questions.

The chances are that no one's in the fields, either, which will really worry Chris: who, after all, is monitoring the pest control stations, or the irrigation systems? In the light of his discussions with Elisabeth, Jim can see now why the staff who look after those functions weren't amongst the rebellious mob; their work has that scientific _cachet_ that links them to Parker's ephemeral 'elite'. He wasn't interested in their support - not when he had a large number of people who spend their days looking after trees and crops to turn to.

He's helping Elisabeth set out some dinner when there's finally a knock on the door, and he opens it to find one of the fruit pickers outside - what was his name again? Peck, or something.

"The Boss wants to see you."

Jim fights with him self not to roll his eyes. Another 'boss', then. He wonders how many bruises and cuts _that_ cost. He is tempted to ask this new 'boss' to wait while he has his dinner; but he doesn't want Zoe to be obliged to watch him being punched. Elisabeth wouldn't appreciate it either, "Fair enough." He indicates that the man should go, and he follows.

He is not surprised to find that the occupant of Taylor's desk is now Tom Jackson. What _does_ surprise him, however, is that the rest of the previous 'inner circle' of discontents that used to meet in Boylan's are also present. It looks as though, this time, the man at the top means to keep hold of the power he's got - and that makes him a far more dangerous prospect than Parker. God alone knows what'll happen now when Taylor gets back.

"I don't have the combination to the weapons store, Mr Shannon." He says, coldly, "Give it to me."

"Is the colony under threat?" Jim retorts. The last thing he wants to do is hand it over. This man seems far less likely to miss it if he changes it after he's done so.

"The colony's always under threat."

As Jackson sits back, Jim begins to feel a nasty suspicion rising at the back of his mind. Parker was utterly disinterested in handing over power to his colleagues - and spent his time loafing around while others did the business of keeping the populace quiet. Perhaps they let him rouse the Colony - and then shoved him aside once they felt secure to do it. Hell - he's got no choice; there's no argument he can make against a paranoid assertion of danger everywhere.

Forcing himself not to look discontented, he nods, "674493841"

"Good. Now, get out. You'll report to the fields from tomorrow."

Jim stares at Jackson, startled, "The fields?"

"Those things with crops in. You know what those are, surely? You're not required for security duties: I have a security team. All non-essential personnel will be ordered to report to the fields from tomorrow."

He knows it won't help to ask who the 'security' men are. Annoyed, but knowing better than to show it, he departs.

* * *

Elisabeth's expression is not happy as she sets out the breakfast things, "I've had a message through on my plex - everyone who isn't essential to the running of the infirmary has to go out to the fields. It's like they're replacing their friends with other people so that they can have an easy life while everyone else does the work."

"So did Parker." Jim sighs, "He just wasn't organised."

She catches his frown, "What is it?"

"I'm beginning to wonder if Parker was a patsy."

"In what way?" she leans forward, her voice dropping to a whisper.

"I get the feeling that Parker could talk the talk, but not walk the walk - so they let him get on with it and then got him out of the way once he'd done the dirty work for them."

"What - Tom Jackson planned this all along?"

"Perhaps. He's a hell of a lot sharper than Parker was - I'm never going to get away with changing the combination on the weapons store with him. Worse, he's got the rest of that crew with him already - so he's not going to turn them off by shutting them out like Parker did. I think we're really in trouble this time."

Elisabeth is now even more worried, "What about the children? Does he expect them to go into the fields as well?"

"I haven't heard anything about that. If the school's open, then I guess not. He's keeping Max's team where they are, and the construction crews - but if what you do doesn't have an immediate practical use, then they want you in the fields."

As he escorts Zoe to school, he notices that very few stalls are open in the marketplace, and the only reason that Josh is still trading is because the men who are now controlling the colony want somewhere to go for a drink during the day. At least that means it might be possible to re-establish Boylan as a sneak - though there's no guarantee that his double agent-ing will go unnoticed this time round.

To his relief, there are a couple of teachers at the school - but it's clear that only the teachers for the under twelves are present. It seems that any education beyond the basics is no longer required. Not for people who are apparently going to subsist through agriculture alone.

Chris is looking furious when he arrives at the barn complexes, "I can't believe this - half my experts are pruning, the other half are mending polytunnels. What the hell are they playing at, giving me people who've never farmed in their lives? It's not something that happens by magic, for God's sake. The whole reason I recruited them all was because they were skilled at what they did - even if it was strawberry picking."

Jim sighs, "Parker was an amateur compared to Jackson, Chris. He's set for the duration - and he's got access to the weapons store, so God alone knows what'll happen once Taylor gets back."

"When _is_ he getting back?"

"No idea - it could be tomorrow, it could be next week. Until that portal fires up, they're out for the duration." He sighs, "What d'you want me to do?"

"I imagine they're expecting me to give you something crappy - but I need someone monitoring the pest control systems. It's the worst time of the year for locusts, and they make Holocene locusts look abstemious. If there's a swarm in the area, then I need to set up the countermeasures _before_ they get here, not as they arrive. It's pretty straightforward: the system alarms, and you give me a call."

"Sounds good to me." Jim grins, relieved to be out of the sun, "Sorry I can't be much help - this is getting beyond crazy; but there's not much I can do on my own. I've got one set of eyes in the Command centre, but until they've got themselves settled back in, I'm pretty much blind."

"Whatever you decide to do," Chris advises, "Let me know - I'm in."

"I'll bear that in mind. The entire security team's out here as well, so if we have to fight, we've got the experts to hand. I just hope it doesn't come to that."

* * *

Taylor looks at the readings, "Okay - you want me to see it; but I don't know what I'm looking at. I take it that the increase in the size of the numbers is the significant thing?"

Malcolm nods, "They've been rising steadily for the last hour or so, with occasional sudden spikes. The only reason I can offer is that part of the source of the radiation has decayed into something with a shorter half-life, and it's throwing out particles at an increased rate."

"Still not getting it." Taylor admits.

"I think we're looking at the trigger mechanism." Malcolm explains, "some of the baldanite's decayed into something that emits particles more quickly, and that's pushing up the level of radiation much more quickly in some parts but not in others. It's introducing instability into the system, and that's likely to cause the breakdown that will fire up a portal. I don't know what the new substance is - I don't know enough about the baldanite to be able to identify its isotopes - but it's definitely having a major influence."

"How long before we know if it's going to fire?"

"It's impossible to say; but the levels aren't so high that it's going to have that destabilising effect. Not yet, anyway. There are occasional spikes in the rate of increase, but not as many as I'd expect to see if that destabilisation was starting. With levels as high as they are, though, I don't recommend that we go and look at this stage - I want to keep people away from that radiation as much as I can for as long as I can. Inoculations against radiation only exist in science fiction films - and there's only so much we can do to counter the long-term effects if people are contaminated."

"If that's the case, then we'll have a whole pile of contaminated survivors, if any come through."

Malcolm shakes his head, "I don't think so. The log from the _Polly Constance_ didn't mention anyone with symptoms of radiation poisoning - they tend to stand out, so I can't believe no one would've mentioned it. I suspect that it's all absorbed into the portal as the fuel - and, once it runs out, it falls back to natural background levels. People coming through aren't affected. Once the portal's open, it's safe to approach without hazmat suits."

"What do you suggest?"

"Mira, Bram and I go back to witness the portal opening - and if anyone comes through, we can greet them and alert Dunham to send through a collection team. They bring survivors - if any - back here, while I take final readings for the record. Then we head back to the colony and start work on helping our new arrivals to assimilate."

"That'll be hard." Taylor sighs, "Getting used to this place is enough of a stretch when you know you're coming - but to be dumped here would be my personal idea of hell."

Malcolm looks equally uncomfortable, "And for me - even if it'd happened back when I didn't have anyone at home. You can only stretch scientific fascination so far."

"So we wait?"

"For now. Yes: we wait."


	19. Lockdown

**A/N:** I got all meta there, didn't I?!

Yep, things are definitely going downhill with our new Colony Commander (or not) - and how much longer does Malcolm have to wait for the wormhole to go ping? On we go!

* * *

 **PART THREE**

 **Future**

Chapter Nineteen

 _Lockdown_

The atmosphere in her compound is subdued - again. They're all there only because the value of what they're doing outweighs the perception of elitism that's driven all the scientists into the fields. No matter how obsessed Jackson and his crew are with reinterpreting Terra Nova as some sort of bucolic fantasy where everyone else does the work, they still need clothes and shoes - and her department is the only source of such items.

She hasn't admitted it, but Yseult is particularly torn over Malcolm's absence now that Jackson has taken charge. While she's still very relieved that he's not present to endure punishment for speaking out of turn - something that she knows he would do - his absence leaves her feeling deeply insecure and unprotected. She only goes to her own home with Pete for company - to check that everything's okay. Otherwise, she is still living in Maddy's house; and Jim regularly drops by to make sure that they're okay. Not that it's helping her to get enough sleep, what with the tension and a fractious toddler unsettled in a strange house.

Ninette is supervising another batch of cotton cloth from the loom, but she doesn't have her usual expression of interest and enjoyment in what she's doing. Everyone's the same: back in the residential areas, there's a sense of tension and threat thanks to the presence of people watching each other. How long it'll be before the denunciations start, Yseult doesn't want to guess - though that may just be Orwellian-inspired paranoia. Most people are just keeping their heads down and hoping like hell that Taylor gets back soon - it's just the people who want to be part of the new ruling party who are trying to curry favour by telling tales.

"Are you alright, Max?" Ninette is looking at her, with an unnerving acuteness.

"Yes, and no." She admits, "I can't help wondering if Tom Jackson's going to have something to say about me slashing at him with my ornamental sword when he forced his way into my house."

"'E was in the wrong, Max." Ninette insists, "It may be that 'e shall be too embarrassed to mention it, and so leave you alone."

"God, I hope so." She can't stop herself from shuddering at the thought of what might have happened had she not had the means to defend herself from his attentions, "Perhaps it'll give them all a reason to leave us alone. I'm not the only one who's had to go through this."

Ninette's expression darkens. She's fortunate, in that she's married to a burly construction worker, so any attempt to harass her would lead to the perpetrator's teeth being rammed so far down his throat that he'd need to stick a toothbrush up his backside to clean them; but that doesn't stop her from sympathising with her fellow female colonists who are not so lucky.

She spends most of the rest of the day with Ben, re-lining the blast furnace. It's mindless, tedious work - but she wants that right now: something that doesn't require extensive concentration. With everything that's going on, she really can't keep her mind on more intricate work. Ben is also something of a man-mountain - another protective bastion between her and Jackson. Given that he's had a go at her twice, she can't escape the nervous fear that he'll keep trying, even though the likeliness has faded thanks to her protective measures. Now that he's put himself in charge, she isn't at all assured that those measures will hold.

It hurts. Hurts that Malcolm isn't there to assure her, hold her hand or cuddle her. If she missed him before, now she wants only for him to come home, so that she can be held by him again. The only difficulty with that is trying to stop him from protesting at the new government; but with Taylor home as well, she can't see _that_ lasting.

Then she remembers what was happening to Taylor before they left. What if it's got worse? What if they couldn't deal with it? Oh God…what if Taylor's lead them into danger in his compromised state?

For a moment, she feels almost faint - and then remembers that they've got Mira with the party, and Dunham's really been stepping up to the plate since his promotion. Between them, they'll have kept the expedition safe. They'll have kept Malcolm safe…

"Easy, Max." Suddenly there's a pair of hands taking hold of her shoulders as she sways, "Come and sit down before you fall down."

Her knees shaking rather, Yseult allows Ben to guide her to an upturned crate and sit her down, "Sorry, Ben."

"No problem. You just went seriously pale for a moment. Do you want me to fetch Pete to get you home?" He knows better than to suggest she go alone.

"That sounds like a good idea." She admits, "I just let things get to me for a moment. I've not been getting a lot of sleep."

"In that case, I'll get Pete to take you to see Dr Shannon." Ben says, firmly.

"Ben…" she protests.

"Humour me, okay?"

"Okay." She sighs.

* * *

Elisabeth looks at the results of her examination, "How long has it been since you last had a decent night's sleep, Max?"

Yseult hesitates, thinking it over, "Probably the last time that Malcolm was home."

Elisabeth smiles, "I know what you mean. I remember what it was like after Jim was imprisoned. It took me weeks to get used to being alone in bed. Mind you," She adds, smiling, "It took me a while to get used to having him back again once I got here."

"I miss him, Elisabeth." Yseult says, becoming tearful, "I just want him home."

She doesn't hesitate, and hugs her patient, "I know - believe me, I _know_. It hurt like hell to be without Jim - so I really do understand how you're feeling."

"What if we can't get the colony back, Elisabeth?" Yseult asks, worriedly, "There's only eight security staff out there, Malcolm only carries his sidearm when he has to, and he's never had to use it. Mira might well be a one woman army - but even she's not enough to take on the people who've taken over here. They're colonists - not invaders, so what the hell do we do?"

"I don't know." Elisabeth admits, "I haven't a clue how we deal with this. We can't throw that many people out - it would be the ultimate expression of cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. Jim's had to give them the key code to the weapons store, so they can use guns against us if we try to reclaim the place. Besides, if we do try to make plans, someone's likely to report it, and then we're the ones on the wrong end of the weapons."

"It's horrible. I don't know who we can trust." Yseult agrees, "I know none of my mob would do something like that - but if people are scared, they might speak up. If we do revolt, then people are going to get hurt. It might be three years now since we were occupied, but that's something that really remains in the consciousness. I don't think it would be a malicious act - just an impulse driven by fear. I don't know about you, but I don't want to put people in that position."

"Nor do I." Elisabeth sighs, "I really don't want to have lots of serious injuries in here - and I don't want people to die. We lost too many people when the Phoenix group came through." She looks up, "Do you want to come over for dinner tonight? I think it would do us all some good to just sit and try to think of something else to talk about."

"It's worth a try." Yseult smiles, "Sign me up."

* * *

No one fails to enjoy the dinner that Elisabeth has provided, though again conversation is rather stilted as no one really knows what to say, particularly as Zoe is at the table, and she's really too young to be listening to the adults complaining that they can't do anything about the worrying situation. She can't even occupy herself playing with her niece and Erin, as the two are younger still, and both are now sleeping.

Fortunately, Skye is very good at distracting her, and the two are soon engrossed in a history article on her plex. Given her heroic efforts during the occupation, no one's keen on having her away from the table while they wonder what the hell they're going to do, but it's either that or have Zoe sitting in.

Jim is swirling the last of a rather good blackberry wine around his glass, looking at the vortex rather distractedly. In spite of how hard it had been when Weaver and Lucas had controlled things, their actions had been far easier to countenance - thanks to their enemy being from an external source. How the hell do they fight back against some of their own people?

"I should never've let it get to this." He says, eventually, "We could see what was going on - but we were so worried about making things worse that we let them _get_ worse."

"Like the Rhineland." Yseult sighs, "If people had sent in the troops when Hitler invaded there, he would've been defeated, and that would've been that. The political structure he was building wasn't strong enough to support a defeat at that early stage. But everyone was so scared of tripping off another Great War that they wanted to try appeasement instead." She turns to Jim, "It wasn't anyone's fault - not unless you had some sort of precognitive abilities and didn't use them. Last time I checked, you weren't able to see the future. We can only do what we think is right - and hope that it actually is."

"Max is right, Jim." Elisabeth agrees, "Regardless of the leadership structure, the Commander's never been a demagogue - he listens to reason, and takes that into account when he makes his decisions. That someone chose to represent that as a distant elitism caught us by surprise - and we know that we need to start thinking about alternative methods of Government. I think it was just a case of bad timing - the Commander went OTG, and people took advantage of that. No matter how respected you are, you're still not Commander Taylor."

"Yeah." Jim continues to swirl his wine, "I don't have that mystique."

"It does show how blind we were, though." Elisabeth adds, "We were cheerfully carrying on - and none of us had the first idea that not everyone was happy. We're lucky - we've got the Commander's ear on a daily basis. Most people don't, so that makes him a much more remote figure for them. If they feel that they're just here to do the donkey work, and they have no real say in how the colony's run, then it's no wonder they're not happy. They came here for a second chance at life, and everyone assumed that this place would become a much larger community than it has. It hasn't - so things seem to have set into a fixed pattern."

"And the prospect of self-rule disappeared down the toilet." Jim finishes. "Hell, no wonder people thought Parker was the Second Coming."

"With the Commander behaving as he was before he left," Yseult picks up, "There was no chance that he was going to listen to us when we suggested more representative forms of government - so I can't see how we could've prevented this. It was a perfect storm of bad things coming together at the same time, and now we're stuck with someone in the Command Centre who could do anything; we just don't know. At least, with Commander Taylor, we had some idea."

Skye returns to the table, "Zoe's gone to sleep. What've I missed?"

"Just a mutual self flagellation session." Josh grins, "We've being doing the 'why didn't we see this coming and stop it' routine."

"Ah." She sits down beside him and takes his hand.

"I hate to say it," Maddy looks up from her empty wine glass, "but the only thing that's going to do anything is some sort of catastrophe or other. The Commander's always been able to turn bad incidents around - even if he's needed our help to do it - and he's got the knowledge and experience to deal with things like that. These men don't; and until they find themselves faced with the sort of challenge that the Commander knows how to handle, and everyone sees that they can't, we're stuck in a corner."

"I'd suggest passive resistance, but I can't see how we can make that happen." Skye says, "I could do the liaising last time around because Lucas was so fixated on me, and he convinced himself that I was working with him. We could refuse to do stuff, but how many people are that keen to get beaten up?"

They all fall silent again. God, it's hopeless - they can't use force to re-take the colony, not against fellow citizens: particularly citizens who have access to the weapons store. They need Taylor back - but who knows when that's going to happen, or what sort of state he'll be in when he does? Worse - what if he doesn't? No one wants to imagine how _that's_ going to pan out.

"All we can do for the time being is comply." Elisabeth sighs, eventually, "We might've known where we stood with soldiers in our midst - but we had a substantial security force outside the compound when we were occupied. It's quite possible that things will fall apart between this lot, too. Perhaps all we need to do is wait."

She waits for an agreement, or objections; but instead everyone turns at the sound of loud hammering on the door. Bemused, Jim rises from the table, glass still in hand, and goes to open it.

"Stand aside." It's one of Jackson's cadre of thugs - and he's got a sonic rifle, "We're searching the premises."

"Are you kidding me?" Jim asks, almost on reflex, "I've got kids asleep in here!"

His response proves immediately to be a bad move, as the butt of the rifle is walloped right into his solar plexus, and he drops, choking.

"Jim!" Elisabeth is on her feet at once, only to find that there are now four armed men in the house. Immediately, she goes very still.

"Like I said." The first man says, coldly, "We're searching the premises. Stand aside."

* * *

The rations may be designed to offer optimal nutrition and minimal bulk, but no one's going to suggest that they're _haute cuisine_ , and the evening meal is a distinctly uninteresting affair.

Despite the lack of predators in the vicinity, no one's being complacent, and Carter is currently on watch with a lamp and a sonic rifle at the edge of the platform, alternating between scanning the sandy ground below, and brooding over the loss of Hal Wicks. Sitting beside the heater, as they've run out of firewood, Mira watches him, then looks back at Malcolm, who is doing a very poor impression of a man not becoming at all stir-crazy because of a wait that has no discernible end.

The previously rising levels of radiation have stabilised again, frustrating him intensely. The last thing he wants is to be obliged to leave before the portal opens. At one time, it would've been because he wanted to see it happen - now, however, the impulse for his protests is based entirely upon the awful fate that befell the crew of the _Polly Constance_. She can understand that - the thought that people might be wrenched through that portal to die in the vast expanse of the Badlands because their rescuers had run out of supplies and left just beforehand is horrible. The trouble is - there's no guarantee that people will come through. What if the wormhole opens and there's nothing in the vicinity to come through it? But then again, what if there is? No wonder he's so silent and morose. He went through utter hell in the Badlands, so it's inevitable that he can't accept that others would have to endure that.

Alongside him, the signal from the probe continues to click, constantly yanking his attention back to the problem at hand. It's been doing that for nearly two days now, and she wonders if he's had any decent sleep since they got back from the crater, so she crosses to sit beside him, "Go to bed, Malcolm. I'll monitor the probe. If it does anything other than click, I'll come and get you. You'll be no use to anyone if you're too exhausted to do anything once the portal _does_ open."

He looks up at her, "I shouldn't. I need to…"

"Which part of 'I'll monitor the probe' didn't you get?" she asks, with mock asperity, "Get your head down. You're practically asleep on your feet as it is."

He looks like he's going to protest for a moment, but then sags, "I know. You're right." Slowly, tiredly, he levers himself off the ground and makes his way to his tent. As promised, Mira settles down alongside the plex from which the clicks issue every ninety seconds without fail.

Taylor sits down beside her, "He's taking this hard."

"Of course he is. He wants the portal to open before we have to go so we don't leave survivors to die in the desert like he nearly did."

"I get that." He nods, "And I'm no damn use. Not while I'm like this." He shakes the water bottle that contains his dose of distillate, "I never thought I'd ever say this, Mira - but thank God you came along. Malcolm's a better leader than he gives himself credit for - but he's got no survival skills worth a damn, and he can't navigate."

"I'd say that he's a good leader because he listens to the experts." Mira adds, a little pointedly.

"Give me a break, Mira. I've gone ga-ga." Taylor says, with a skewed smile, "If you're wondering, yes, I've given a lot of thought to what happens when we get back. Assuming Doctor Shannon can cure me, I still need to work on what happens after I'm gone. I've always had other things to worry about: establishing the colony, dealing with the Phoenix Group both times, and then this. I can't keep putting it off - or I leave the colony helpless. That's a hell of a bomb to drop on Shannon."

"You think he could take over from you?"

"Yeah - I think he could. But whether he'd _want_ to? I can't see him jumping at the chance to run the Colony. He does it if I'm not around - but he's always happy to hand it back again. He's damn good, and I know I can rely on him - but he doesn't want to be in charge unless he has to be."

Mira gazes at the heater. It has absolutely none of the romantic connotations of a campfire, of course, but given how quickly the temperature drops when the sun goes down, it's better than nothing, "What do we do if we get survivors through the portal?"

"Meet 'em. Talk to 'em. Take 'em back to the colony. What else can we do? Doctor Shannon's got people who can act as counsellors - even if you know you're coming it's a hell of an adjustment to make. If these people aren't coming through from our future, they may not be living in filth like we were - so it'll be worse for them because they already had clean air."

"You think they'd go crazy?"

"If they're trapped on the other side of a one way rift with no way to get back to families, and no way to tell them what's happened. Yeah. I think they could."

Mira's eyes go distant. She completely understands _that_ dilemma. The only difference is that her daughter will almost certainly have guessed that she's never coming back. For a moment, she clenches her fists so tightly that her fingernails dent her palms. Now is not the time to wallow in that sort of regret. Even though she's proved to most of the people she's learned to call friends that she's not a rock hard woman with zero feelings, Taylor isn't one of them. Not yet, anyway. There's too much bad blood to work out for that.

"Perhaps it's just as well you're here." Taylor says, quietly, "If anyone knows what they'd be going through, that'd be you, wouldn't it?"

She doesn't answer. She doesn't need to.

The Commander rises to his feet, "I don't know about you, but I'm gonna hit the sack."

"I promised Malcolm I'd watch his readings for him. You get some rest."

"Fair enough. I'd tell you to get someone else to take over later if I thought you'd actually do it."

She smirks with amusement, "Like hell."

By now, everyone's drifted to their tents but for her and for Carter, who will remain at his post until Travers comes to relieve him in the small hours. While Mira's no scientist, she's hardly a dullard either, and she periodically monitors the radiation levels being transmitted by Malcolm's probe. They've been stable for a while now, though now and again, there's been another slight spike before things settle back down again. Sitting there, she can get a sense of his frustration at the stubborn refusal of that radioactivity to get more reactive again. That initial instability really gave the impression that something was happening - but now it's not. Or, at least, that's what it feels like. So near, and yet so far…

Everything remains absolutely silent for hours. Mira has learned from long experience how to be patient in such circumstances, and she doesn't chafe at the endless nothing. Above her, she can see the gradual movement of the stars as they appear from behind the overhang, and she enjoys the sheer glory of a sky free from pollution. Every now and again, a meteorite streaks across the sky - the remains of the scattered rocks that didn't fall into the clutches of gravity as the planet formed now trying to join the party, only to be swallowed up by the friction of the atmosphere.

Yet again, the probe sensor clicks. She knows it's only there to indicate that the thing's still broadcasting, but sometimes she thinks the clicks are closer together, other times further apart, as she has no other sense of the immediate passage of time. It's the figures that keep popping upon the plex that will show when things get going again, so that's what holds the rest of her attention when she's not absorbed in the cosmos.

Travers emerges from his tent and goes over to relieve Carter, who nods, hands over the equipment, and makes his way back to his tent. And all returns to quiet again, as Mira's head begins to nod.

When she opens her eyes again, she curses under her breath - is this the false dawn or the real one? Checking her chronometer, she realises that it's not as late as she feared, and she hastily checks the plex again.

The activity's back up - and significantly so, too. Hell, it looks like things might be happening after all, and God knows if they're going to get there in time to see it. Scrambling to her feet, she hastens across to Malcolm's tent, "Malcolm - wake up."

Her voice is low, but fortunately Malcolm is not in a deep sleep, and she can hear rustling as he fumbles with his sleeping bag on the other side of the nylon. There's only one reason she'd be alerting him like this, and thus he is not long about it, "The activity's up again?"

"Way up. It's gone up around twenty percent in the last two hours - but I'd dozed off, so I don't know when it started."

"I can check that from the data stream." He's unzipping the flap, and emerges in the same clothes he was in last night, though the buttons of his shirt are in the wrong buttonholes, "Show me the plex."

She hands it over, and he looks through, "You're right. It's up again - and this time the rate's consistent. It's risen another five percent in the last ten minutes. I think we need to put our plan into action."

"I'll go wake Dunham. You get what you need." She's off at once.

As he watches the incoming figures, he spots another jump - quite a large one - before it drops back again. Then another, and another. God, it's building - it must be. It'll take them three hours to get out there if they're careful, but with luck, they'll make it in time.

Almost shaking with excitement, Malcolm sets the plex down, and heads off to get Travers to set down a ladder. He's got a rover to check.

* * *

The word 'search' seems something of an understatement, judging by the degree of flinging about and overturning going on in the Shannon Household. Zoe's already awoken with a scream as her bedroom door was roughly opened, while both Erin and Elisabeth Rose are freaking out as only frightened toddlers can.

"What the hell are you looking for?" Jim has got his breath back now, though he doesn't want to push his anger too much - that rifle butt was bloody painful, and he knows the bruise'll be spectacular when it comes out, "There's nothing in here that's not been here since we arrived."

He has no idea why he's asking the question - it's pretty damn obvious that it's an intimidation tactic. They're not looking for anything, just making it clear that they're in charge now, and woe betide anyone who objects. If even the Shannons aren't free from being turned over, then no one is.

Finally, however, the wholesale vandalism stops, and the group reassemble in the living room, "Right. All back to your homes. Your _own_ homes." He adds, as Yseult crosses to join Maddy, "From today, you're all under curfew. None of you are gonna meet up again anywhere. You stay in your houses, and don't come out except for emergencies. Except for you, Doctor Shannon. You're still needed in the infirmary - but you'll have someone with you at all times so don't try passing messages out." It's obvious he means the former senior staff. The Shannons were instrumental in helping to oust the Phoenix group, of course, so they've got form. The fact that Yseult wasn't involved in any way means nothing - she's senior staff, too, and thus has Taylor's ear.

"If I do, then they'll have to watch me operating." Elisabeth says, with an annoying matter-of-factness, "They do know that, don't they?"

She remains absolutely impassive in the face of his irritated scowl. She may be slight, she may be short - but she's never been one to be crossed. Glaring, the anonymous man indicates that everyone else leave.

The walk back to her house leaves Yseult very nervous, and constantly looking about for fear that Jackson is waiting for her, either outside her door, or _en route_. Worse, what if he's inside? Trembling rather more than she would like, she punches in the entry code, and switches on the main lights almost before she's in the house.

Nothing.

Relieved, she shuts the door and hastily sets the deadlock. Now, only the override will open that door - and only Jim has that. Short of breaking windows, if Jackson wants to try again, he's going to get absolutely nowhere. As far as she's concerned, no-one's getting in from now on other than Jim, or Malcolm - once he's home.

Instinctively, she cuddles Erin close, "I miss your daddy, sweetheart." She whispers, "I wish he was home."

But, on the other hand, she's still very glad that he's not. If they've broken out the guns, then things are only set to get worse from here.


	20. Portal

**A/N:** One of the advantages of writing 'as I go' is the opportunity to make changes based on comments in the reviews. I wasn't originally going to have survivors come through the portal - but the anticipation of having survivors changed my mind, and thus I didn't have to do extensive rewriting...

* * *

Chapter Twenty

 _Portal_

Taylor watches, a little enviously, as everyone around him sets to work on preparing for the moment that the portal will open. Much as he'd like to be in charge, as long as there's any danger that he's compromised, he's stuck with being sat on the sidelines, a bottle of his dose of distillate to hand. And its taste isn't improving with time, either.

Bram has a heap of diagnostic equipment in a crate, while Malcolm is busy packing the hazmat suits into a more easily accessible canister on the back of his rover. With things as they are, he's not prepared to risk waiting until they get to the small fissure in the rock-face that admitted them to the crater last time. They'll stop as soon as his rad-meter spikes above a predetermined danger-level, and get into them there.

Elsewhere, Dunham is busy with Reynolds and Lynott, loading up a rhino with medical equipment, more diagnostic equipment, more probes, and stocks of provisions in case there are any survivors that need medical assistance, or merely to be fed and watered. There's no certainty that the portal will bring something through - but they don't know yet whether the portal opens in the future in a random location, or something there helps to tether it when it does. Even this event won't answer that question - it'll take years, and the work of the colony's descendents - to confirm which of those answers is correct.

"Is that everything?" he asks, as Malcolm closes the last of the canisters.

"I think so. Given that Dunham's bringing half the camp with him in the rhino, if I've forgotten anything, it'll just be a bit late arriving." He pauses, "Are you sure you don't want to come with us? You're the leader of the colony - if anyone _does_ come through, it'd be appropriate for you to greet them. There's room for another hazmat suit."

Taylor pauses in turn. To most, he is the father of the colony - a paternalistic figure that can, if he's not careful, take on slightly messianic tinges when people are feeling particularly mushy - but to a stranger, he would be a military type, and his own knowledge of history suggests that not everyone is comfortable in the presence of soldiers. But then - when is he ever going to have an opportunity to witness something like this again?

"If I do, then you make damn sure that you're in a position to drop me if I go strange." He says, firmly, "Everything's been okay so far, but I wouldn't put it past whatever passes for bad luck in this place to have it stop working at an inconvenient moment."

Malcolm looks unnerved at such a prospect, but quickly shakes his head, "That won't happen - but I'll do it if you insist."

"Believe me. I insist." In spite of himself, he's already making his way to the back seat of the rover, "Let's do this."

Not having seen the terrain outside their camp before, he is as entranced as Malcolm and Mira were before him: wide vistas of sand from which those great bare-rock hills rise almost arbitrarily, as though someone dropped them from a great height, and they stuck there. Above, the sky is an almost movie-cliché azure, and not so much as a wisp of cloud obscures that endless expanse.

The rover bounces rather more violently than Mira would like, as she's taking the journey a little faster than usual. Malcolm's eager impatience couldn't be more obvious, despite his attempts to hide it from her; but she knows how important this is to him. And to the colony. If there's any chance of newly arrived pilgrims snatched out of their world into this one, then the worst thing they can do is leave such unfortunates helpless in a massive expanse of desert. Given the uncontrolled nature of a natural portal, not everyone comes through alive, but those who do face the cruellest of fates, and Malcolm is not the only one who wants to be sure that no one ever has to endure that again.

The difficulty is balancing that need to hurry with the need to stay safe. The lack of a really strong breeze has helped somewhat, as the tracks from their previous sortie are still present, and she knows that it's a safe route, having already driven it both ways - so it's rather unexpected when Malcolm suddenly looks up, "Mira, stop here."

"Here?" she looks at him, surprised, as she pulls up, "It's got to the danger level already? We're still over an hour out!"

He nods, "I'm not surprised - the rate of increase has been pretty massive for nearly a day and a half. It's just a little above normal here, but it was like this just outside the crater the last time that we visited, so I want us all in the suits now. It might stay like this for another half hour or more - but then again, it might jump suddenly and we might be hit by a dangerous dose of radiation."

"Better safe than sorry." She agrees, and nimbly hops out of the vehicle to fetch down the appropriate canister, and raids another for fresh water bottles, "Get as much water on board as you can now. Once we're suited up, that'll be it for getting anything in your mouth until we're able to take the suits off."

"God, these are like personal ovens." Bram complains, as they clamber back into the rover far more awkwardly than they clambered out, "Just as well we can get out of them once the portal's fired up. I look like an alien from a 1950s B movie."

If there had been any hopes of a cooling breeze coming in as they continue the journey, the failure of one to form makes everyone horribly uncomfortable. As is always the case when one has no access to water, the large amount that everyone has drunk seems to have been of almost no benefit at all, and the entire party has fallen into a rather morose silence by the time the great wall of the crater finally hoves into view.

"How's the rad-meter?" Taylor asks.

"Going completely bonkers." Malcolm answers, "It's pretty much off the scale, and spiking madly. I don't think we're going to have to wait for much longer."

"Then let's get into that crater."

* * *

Leading the way, the first thing that captures Malcolm's attention is a strange sense of static in the air - as though a storm is building. There are no clouds in the sky above them, but far out, in the centre of the crater - just at the deepest point of the bowl - something very odd is occurring. Unsure of how the engine will react to the degree of energy in the air, he's insisted on leaving the rover outside the crater this time.

"Look at the sand," he shouts, his voice muffled by the suit, and the screeching of alarms on his rad-meter, "It's like the minerals are being attracted to something."

All eyes are on that spot, as the sand seems almost to be boiling: weird bubble-like protrusions emerging, then breaking, only for more to rise in their place, while a thin mist rises from the patch of sand like steam from a volcanic pool.

"What the hell's happening?" Taylor asks, bemused.

"I don't know - I've never seen anything like it." Malcolm answers, "It must be the force of the particles - they're being given off at such a mad rate that they're energising the minerals in the sand grains, but it must be causing some sort of attraction between the grains at the same time - like…I don't know…surface tension on water?" He turns to ask Bram if he's recording it, only to find that he is doing so, his plex held before him, and his eyes wide with astonishment. With things as they are, however, they can't go down there and take samples - not only would the radiation be potentially too much for the suit, Malcolm has no idea whether that bubbling surface would take his weight. The last thing he wants to do is sink in it as though it were quicksand.

The sense of thickness in the air seems to grow worse, accentuating their thirst and how hot they are, while that bubbling grows ever more frantic, and more and more sand grains rise into the air, forming a vertical column that seems to twist on the spot in the midst of a rising vortex of energy that stops about six metres above the ground. It couldn't be clearer that, when a portal forms, it'll do it right there.

"How long d'you think the portal's gonna last?" Mira shouts to Malcolm, as the air seems almost to be buzzing now, a maddening, ear-filling sound that seems to have no source.

"Not long." He shouts back, "Given how much energy they needed to sustain a wormhole in the future, I imagine we'll get a couple of minutes at the most before the source is exhausted and it dies again."

And still they wait. The sun moves slowly round, and at last they are in shade, so they sit down while Bram continues to record the activity in the crater. The rad-meter has finally been silenced, unable to cope any longer with the degree of radiation, and Malcolm is now seriously concerned that the suits won't protect them for much longer.

"Can you feel that?" Mira asks, suddenly.

"What?" Malcolm turns to her, then stops, "Hell - it feels like I'm being pulled forward."

It's not a strong sensation - easily resisted - but nonetheless the sand is now rising from the floor of the crater at a much more violent rate, where it's pulled into a large, wildly swirling cloud at the top of that column.

"I think this is it!" Bram shouts at them, though the sensation of being drawn in is becoming more pronounced, and everyone backs away to where they can stand behind rocks and anchor themselves - just in case.

Beneath the column, the ground becoming ever more active, the strange bubbling effect now almost insanely fast, and that annoying buzzing is getting almost unendurably loud given that they can't cover their ears.

It happens in a mere blink of an eye, a soundless detonation that blooms out of nothingness in the midst of the swirling sand. To Malcolm, it's as though he's watching the big bang in microcosm - a sudden everything from nothing; that moment from singularity to a universe. The sand that was in the air seems almost to fuse instantaneously into glass, the shards being blown in all directions with shocking force as a great ball of bright, white light is suddenly present where, before, there was nothing.

He can barely take his eyes from it, but hastily flicks his glance down now and again to the rad-meter, where the levels of radiation are - as he expected - dropping like an acme anvil in a _Bugs Bunny_ cartoon. Another thirty seconds at the most, and then the light will be gone. Even now, it's almost to the point where they can think about removing their suits - as the radiation at a distance is drawn in to compensate for that which has fuelled the portal at the centre.

Twenty seconds…fifteen…but he doesn't get to count down to zero, as the portal shudders visibly at the twelve second mark, fluctuates a few more times, and then collapses in on itself. In that single instant, it's gone.

"Bloody hell." Bram mumbles, "That was a sight for the ages."

"What are the levels like?" Mira asks, "Can we get these damned suits off?"

Malcolm's answer is to remove the helmet, "It's even drawn out the particles that were settled on the suits." He says, his voice unencumbered by the rebreather, "Yes. We're safe to…" his voice dries up.

Slowly, everyone turns to look at whatever it is that's distracted him, and they see it.

They were wondering whether or not the portal would bring something through.

It looks like it has.

* * *

Jim has been pacing back and forth in his living room now for nearly an hour. He is not a man who is predisposed to brood; but then, the last time he was imprisoned for longer than a day or so, he was in Golad, and that brings up a range of unpleasant, unwanted memories that are of absolutely no use to him right now.

Zoe is doing her best to try to work, her notes and text books set out on the screen of her plex. The school's been closed, and she can't communicate with any of her teachers, so she's doing what she can with what she has. He's not exactly unintelligent - but there's only so much that he can teach her that doesn't involve police procedure, so he fidgets and feels incompetent over _that_ , too. God - he hates being so damn useless.

Josh is more fortunate, in that he has been sent to the bar to work - no matter how restrictive a regime, people still want to go and get wasted, so he is still able to leave, as is Elisabeth. Given how comprehensively he is watched while working, and searched on the way back, Josh has not yet found any way to safely smuggle notes in as he did when Parker was in charge. Thus, Jim is blind again, which is the worst of it. Elisabeth can tell him how things are in terms of the overall health of the colonists, so he knows that dissent is being much more thoroughly crushed this time around, as the beatings are systematic and severe. In some cases, people have been randomly pulled aside and walloped - even though they're adamant that they've said nothing to anyone about anything. Consequently, people go out into the fields for their shifts, and come back again - and that's it. The only socialising is being done by the new 'elite': the one that supposedly wasn't going to stand for 'elites' any more.

His stomach growls, and he sighs. They've got enough supplies in the house for one more family meal - after which they're going to have to go to the market place to patronise one of the few stalls that are still open to at least ensure no one starves. Elisabeth hasn't been permitted to stop off on her journey from the infirmary to the house, any more than Josh has been able to do so on the way back from the bar. Perhaps they intend to starve the senior staff into submission. God knows how it is for Yseult - she's got a little one to feed, and her duties have been deputed to Pete - but he has no idea if she's been permitted to leave her house in order to go food shopping.

The sound of a fist banging on the door rouses him from his furious brooding, and he snatches it open, ready to issue a stern rebuke to the person who has disturbed him, only to find that the man on the doorstep is Boylan.

"What do you want?" He might have more trust for the man these days, but they've got a front to maintain, and there are two of Jackson's men nearby.

One thing that Boylan does very well is that awful, smug smile common to people who've ingratiated themselves with bullies. Much as it annoys people to whom he shows it, it gets him in with people who think that they've won his always rather dubious loyalty, "Boss fella sent me." He drawls cheerfully, "Wants to know what you want from the shops."

"You're doing our shopping?" Jim stares at him in disbelief.

"All the beancurd you could ever want." Boylan's grin widens: he knows Jim hates the stuff, "He doesn't want you to starve, does he? He's gonna be a great leader." There's a look of sarcastic scorn there now, as his minders are behind him and can't see it, "Certainly gonna give Taylor a run for his money."

Jim sighs, "Am I supposed to give you a list, or do we get what we're given?"

Boylan's smirk widens, "List…yeah, right. I'll be back with your delivery later."

"I can't wait." Jim says, resignedly, as Boylan flashes him the ghost of a wink, then turns to depart.

* * *

Yseult is exhausted. Erin hasn't settled all night, knowing that something is dreadfully wrong - and she can't comfort her daughter because she's so worried herself. Like all children, Erin picks up on her mother's emotions, and has thus become very, very clingy. The fact that she's now not seen her daddy for so long makes matters worse still. Nervous he may be as a father, but Malcolm dotes on her, and she reciprocates absolutely.

What doesn't help is her insistent fear that Tom Jackson might take it upon himself to demand some sort of _droit de seigneur,_ given that he has approached her twice now. She's done all she can to keep him at bay, locking herself in with the deadlock, and hiding her ornamental sword so that she can get at it - but they can't find it if they search the place, but there's someone outside her door now to make sure she doesn't leave, so she hasn't been able to get out to go to the marketplace. The last remaining tins of food will provide tonight's dinner, but then the cupboard will be bare - so how the hell she's supposed to feed herself and her child?

A knock at the door causes her to freeze in her tracks, and she stares at it, nervously. It's only when Tom Boylan steps to the left and looks in through the window that she finally moves, though even now she's afraid to open the door in case Jackson has come, too.

"It's just me, kiddo." Boylan's voice comes through the door; clearly guessing the reason for her hesitation, "Open up."

Nervously, she does so, "Tom?"

He doesn't have to maintain a mask of dislike now - Yseult is very popular with a range of colonists, so it would seem odd for him to _not_ like her - and he smiles, cheerfully, "Say hello to your friendly, neighbourhood shopping fairy."

"Shopping?"

"Yeah - that thing you do when you go to the marketplace and buy stuff."

She dredges up a small smile, "Oh, thank God, Tom. I was beginning to wonder if I'd be allowed to get some supplies. Do you want to come in?"

"Nah - I'll just take the orders for now." He says, cheerfully, though his expression suggests warning - the two men behind him are not merely minders: they're watching him, too.

"All I really need is vegetables and some beancurd if you can get it. I suppose Xiph would be a bit out of the question at the moment." She knows it's spawning season.

He smiles reassuringly, "I'll get you that. Give me a couple of hours, right?"

She nods, "Thank you, Tom."

As she closes the door, her mind is now racing. It might seem like Tom is providing a self-interested meals on wheels service - but he's not known for his altruism, so he must be taking steps to set up some sort of communications network between the imprisoned senior staff. She knows about his rather amusing edible notes on rice paper system, and he can easily slip such notes into bags of vegetables once his minders become habituated to his rounds and stop paying attention. From what she can see, they're doing that already.

Now that she knows that food is in the offing, she returns to the kitchen and fetches out the tin opener. It's not the best food in the universe, but it's better than nothing, and Tom will be back later with some fresh ingredients, so she can put up with it.

There's another knock at the door, and she returns to it, "Is that you, Tom? That was a bit quick wasn't it?"

And then she looks out of the window. It's a Tom - but it's Jackson, not Boylan.

"What do you want?" She asks, looking through the window, her voice hostile.

"House search." He says, shortly, indicating some armed men behind him, "Shannon had a sonic pistol in the house. We're making sure no one else has unsanctioned weapons."

Now she's _very_ grateful that she's hidden the sword, "I can answer that question. I don't have authorisation to carry one, and my husband took his with him when he went out with the expedition. I'm just about to put my daughter down for her nap, so I'm not prepared to allow anyone in. Please go away."

She wants to call Pete - or Jim - but everyone's had to hand in their comm units, and she has no means to do so. Her only weapon - such as it is - is her daughter. The presence of a small child might dissuade him from forcing his way in, and from whatever he wants to do to her. Even now, through the glass of the window, he's looking at her with a disturbing intensity, as though imagining what she must look like under her t-shirt. Shaken, she steps back behind the door, out of sight. Why her? Why is this happening? Is it because her husband's miles away and she's got no other adult relatives to turn to? It must be - everything about Jackson suggests to her that he picks only on targets he perceives to be weaker. He hasn't confronted Jim directly at any time; relying instead on thugs to do it for him. With no one else in the house but a toddler, he must feel safe to exert power over a member of the senior team that he's displaced.

She waits, nervously, for his answer. Her refusal will certainly have angered him, as he wants to dominate, not to be refused.

"Open the door, or I'll have it broken down."

Frightened now, she complies, but opens the door only a little, "I haven't got anything in here that's forbidden."

Jackson shrugs, and pushes his way in, brushing her aside as though she is nothing, "Search the house."

While it's a relief that there are other men in the house, the fact that they immediately start opening drawers and hurling the contents all over the floor is not so welcome. It's not so much a search as wholesale vandalism - wrecking her house because they can. From the way that Jackson continues to eye her, he's doing this to punish her for lashing out at him when he tried to force himself on her the last time he was here. Not that it's deterred him from continuing to undress her with his eyes. Immediately, she crosses to her frightened daughter, and lifts her into her arms. Men seem to be very put off the concept of a woman's bust when they see a small child in the vicinity.

In less than ten minutes, everything has been turfed out of cupboards, and is scattered all over the floor, while her levantine fertility goddess now lies in two pieces on the carpet. The only thing that she's grateful for, other than her safety and that of her child, is that Schmidt hasn't been damaged. She's had that little toy cat since she was a child, and the thought of losing him is almost on a par with losing her family. They probably thought that he was one of Erin's toys.

"Enjoy your tidying." Jackson says, as the two men who did all the damage make their way to the door, "Oh," he adds, much more quietly, "I'll be reopening the nursery from tomorrow. You'll send your kid there - I'll send one of the staff to take her. So you won't be busy once you've cleared up. Will you?"

She keeps her head down, deeply frightened. So they're taking control of her daughter - and, presumably, all the other little children in the colony. With Erin in the hands of the ruling party - he's got the tight hold of her that he needs. And, tomorrow, she will have no choice but to give him what he wants.

* * *

Malcolm is already unzipping his hazmat suit, eager to abandon it in the heat of the day, "Is that a fishing boat? I can't tell from here."

The vessel that's been deposited on the sand is heeling to starboard, and looks to be similar in size to a coastguard cutter. No one in the party has any nautical experience, so it's hard to be sure what they're looking at.

Bram has begun to remove his suit, while Mira and Taylor look a little less keen, as neither of them are entirely convinced that the radiation has truly diminished to a safe level. Eventually, Malcolm turns and shows them the reading on the meter, and Mira shrugs, and removes her helmet. Then Taylor does likewise.

Shouldering a rucksack, which contains equipment and several bottles of water, Malcolm turns back to his party, "Come on, let's see what we've got. If there are people in there, then we need to find them." He seems to be trembling, though not with excitement, more nervous anticipation. If there are survivors, then they're going to have a hell of a time unravelling what's happened.

As they grow closer, it's clear to all of them that the vessel is not a fishing boat - though it looks like it might once have plied the oceans in search of fish. A great deal of work has been done to modernise it, and Malcolm's expression suggests that he recognises a lot of the additions that have been built on, "It looks like it's a research ship, Commander." He calls back as he approaches the leaning vessel, "The diagnostic equipment's a bit old fashioned, I think it's a good century or so before our time."

"Any sign of life?"

"Only one way to find out." Malcolm has abandoned his rucksack, and is trying - and failing - to clamber onto the hull. There's nothing to grab onto to lift himself off the ground onto the side of the bulkhead, "Hello?" he shouts up, "Anyone on board?"

"It'll be easier to go round the back and climb up using the rudder, Malcolm." Mira advises, and the two head around to the back of the ship, where the enormous rudder and propeller are set at almost the ideal angles to aid their ascent.

"There must've been an electro-magnetic pulse of some sort." Malcolm is musing, as they stand alongside it, "There's no other reason for the engine to have stopped - but it's just as well that it has, or there's no way we could get up there." He stands on tip-toes, "Hello? Anyone there?"

"If that came down as hard as it looks, Malcolm, then it's likely that survivors will be unconscious." Mira reminds him, "And I wouldn't rule out some broken bones."

"Paula's coming with the rhino, Malcolm," Bram calls across, "I've sent the signal, so they should be here before the day's out."

"Is it me, or is that an odd name for a research ship?" Taylor says, looking at the name _Madre de Dios_ painted on the stern.

"Not really." Bram says, "Not everyone has the money to buy a brand new, custom made ship. Chances are this was a fishing trawler that got repurposed - I imagine that it was fitted out with grant money. We used to do that."

With Mira's help, Malcolm has managed to clamber up to the rail, and she is not far behind. The tilt of the deck is pretty much impossible, obliging them to crawl along the side of a bulkhead to get to the door to the wheelhouse. A quick glance inside is not promising, "If there was someone in here, Mira," Malcolm says, "They're gone. Whether they were thrown out when the wormhole opened, or they were lost on the way through, God knows."

"Chances are that survivors will be below decks." She reminds him, indicating a door alongside her position, "Here, give me a hand with this handle, it's been jammed down by the force of the impact."

After a few minutes' struggle, the pair manage to unfasten and lift the door open. The tilt of the floor is impossible, but there are various foot and handholds that they can use to make their way down. Or, at least, Mira can use.

"I'll go and see what's down there, Malcolm." She says, seating herself on the side of the door, "You be ready to call down to Taylor if I find anyone. We'll need to work out how we get them out depending on how injured they are."

Well aware that he lacks the dexterity to clamber down a shaft, Malcolm nods, and leans against the rough paintwork of the bulkhead. His heart is racing; not from exertion, but from nervous anticipation that there might well be survivors. If there aren't, of course, then that's that - but he's not sure whether he wants people to have lived or not. If they've died then they've died - and thus all that has to be done is give them a decent burial. But if they've survived - what next? Yes, that's great for the colony as it means more diversity in the gene pool - but it's hardly going to be brilliant for them, is it?

He passes the time thinking of his own arrival in Terra Nova; arrogant, standoffish, uptight. But that was more a defence mechanism than a true sense of superiority over those who had come with him. Having lived most of his life in academic institutions and laboratories, he had little idea of how to behave around people who didn't share his academic mode of existence. Besides, having permanently turned his back on the only world he'd ever known, a lot of ghosts had travelled with him, and much of those early days were spent trying to quell them again.

It had been a huge adjustment for him - and he'd had a choice in the matter. Besides, other than memories, he hadn't had to leave all that much behind. All that he has now - the most precious things in his life - he found here.

" _Malcolm._ " Mira's voice sounds a long way away, " _I've got four - it looks like that's all there are. I've got one broken leg, but otherwise just bumps and bruises. We'll start making our way out once I've splinted the leg_."

Startled, Malcolm raises his head and looks down into the passageway. While it doesn't go far, there's a clear staircase that goes down into the belly of the vessel, so she must be down there somewhere. Lifting himself from the bulkhead, he shouts over the rail, "Commander, we've got survivors - apparently one broken leg."

"Right, I'll let Paula know when they get here." The voice drifts faintly back.

It takes a while for anyone to emerge, but eventually a hand grabs the top of the handrail on the stairs, and a dark haired young man emerges, looking about in confusion.

"This way - up here." Malcolm calls down, "Sorry, there's still a bit of a climb."

It takes nearly an hour to extract the mobile survivors - the young man, a young woman who immediately embraces the young man, and then an older man who seems to be vaguely in charge, though he is aiding Mira in getting the fourth survivor, another dark haired, but older man, out of the passageway.

As Malcolm leans in to help, he hears a voice behind him, "Be careful with my papa - his leg's broken."

The accent is heavily tinged with Spanish. Given where the portal tends to open, it's likely that they were yanked out of the area around the Caribbean, so he is American Hispanic, rather than European Spanish, "Don't worry - we'll look after him." There isn't really a lot else that Malcolm can say, "Commander," He calls down again, "Is there anything we can rig to lower the casualty down to the ground?"

"Workin' on it, Malcolm." Taylor's voice comes up again, "Dunham just radioed in, they're about an hour out."

A sharp groan behind him redirects Malcolm's attention to the man with the broken leg. So far, everyone's been so focused on him, that they haven't noticed what else has happened. All they've registered is that they've had some sort of accident, and rescuers have arrived. He watches, then pauses: the man who has both legs intact is familiar to him.

He had never met the man of course - that would've required time-travel - but he recognises the face from photos on the dust-jackets of academic volumes that were regarded at the time as wild scaremongering. It was only later, when he sat in his digs in London while he was at Imperial, secured from the filthy atmosphere by the Kensington dome, that he realised that the man had been right all along, "Dr Falker?"

Mira looks up at him, sharply, though the man looks quite relieved, "That's me - you heard our distress calls?"

"Not exactly - it'll take a long time to explain. I just recall your face from your publicity photos on your books."

For a moment, the man looks hostile, "And you want to take me down?"

"Er…no." Malcolm looks bemused, "Not at all - I…well…" he runs out of words. Hostility was not what he was expecting.

"Look," the man says, helping his injured colleague to rest on the tilted bulkhead, "I know that people rip the hell out of my books, and that's their right. But they'll regret doing that when they can't breathe anymore."

"Later, Malcolm." Mira warns, "Let's just get off this boat. It's damned hot, and there's no point staying any longer than we need."

Malcolm abandons his embarrassment and scrambles across to help, "Right. The Commander's sorting something out now. The retrieval team's about an hour away, so we might as well go back and meet them at the edge of the crater."

"Crater?" the man he recognises asks, "How the hell are we in a crater?"

"Like I said - it's going to take a long time to explain." Malcolm advises, "We can do it when we're off the ship. Believe me, it's a very long story."

* * *

Paula is busy with her diagnostic equipment, "It's a clean break, Mr Romero," she says, smiling, "This should start the bones knitting again in the next couple of hours." She looks up at Malcolm, "Are we safe to stay here tonight?"

"We should be - as long as we don't get any unwelcome visitors." Malcolm's attention is on the ship. Mira has commandeered Dunham and Reynolds and gone back down there to raid it for supplies. If they can sustain themselves with the stocks on board, then that keeps the rest of their rations for the journey back to the colony. Lynott, on the other hand, remains on guard at the entrance to the crater while everyone else is setting up camp outside it, with that great rock wall to their backs.

The introductions have been rather perfunctory, as the realisation of their situation has yet to truly sink in with the survivors. The man that Malcolm recognises has introduced himself as Bryce Falker, a Professor at the University of Florida, while the young woman is Janet Preston, one of a small number of his students, who was accompanying him on a research trip. The only other survivors are Mateo Romero, the skipper of the boat, and his son, Diego.

"We're all that's left?" she asks, eventually.

Malcolm nods, sadly, "I'm afraid so. How many people were on deck?"

She thinks it over, "Pretty much everyone. It was a sunny day - so people were sunbathing while we were on our way back to port. We must've been about an hour out of San Juan."

"Puerto Rico?"

She nods.

"And you were below decks?"

"Myself, Dr Falker, Mr Romero and Diego." She says, "I was Dr Falker's assistant - Mr Romero and Diego were the crew, plus Rodrigo in the wheelhouse. We were discussing tomorrow's trip out. We're measuring plankton species in the area."

That explains a great deal - those who weren't below must've been flung from the decks - or perhaps they were torn apart by the forces of the wormhole. In some ways, he hopes it was the latter, as that would've been far quicker than being flung into deep, shark-infested waters an hour's boat ride from any port. Perhaps the only way to survive the uncontrolled nature of a natural portal is to be inside a structure of some kind or other.

It does answer one other question, though. While Malcolm remembers reading Falker's books, he also recalls reading that the man had gone missing with a research team of his own students off the coast of Puerto Rico in 2003. It had been a mystery at the time, of course, but now he knows what happened. How odd that it has caused him to finally meet a man he's always wanted to meet. If only to tell him that history vindicated him.

Night is drawing in as Mira and her crew return with a roughly constructed sled that's been piled high with tins, packets and all sorts of other useful items, "We've left the rest." She says, "There was a lot of gasoline leaking in the lower portions of the ship, so we thought it best to get the hell out with what we had. All it'd take now is a spark - the thing's a bomb."

"I won't argue with that." Taylor agrees, "I take it there's no point in fetching in the rover?"

"Definitely not. I don't want anything with any sort of electrical charge anywhere near that ship."

"What about my data?" Falker looks up, sharply, "I've got a laptop on there that's got six years' worth of results - I need to get that so I can publish…"

"I wouldn't." Mira warns, "We haven't got time to risk it. Believe me, it's not worth it."

"I have to warn people…"

"There's no need." Malcolm sighs, "All the warnings in the world wouldn't have worked. We still buggered up the planet anyway."

Falker stares at him, "'Buggered' as in past tense?"

Malcolm nods, "I wish I could find an easy way to tell you this - but…"

"Just tell me."

Malcolm looks across at Taylor, who nods, "Your ship passed through a fracture in the fabric of space and time. There's a natural buildup of energy in that crater that fuels a wormhole between the future and the past - we've just witnessed the creation of that wormhole, and unfortunately your boat was where it opened. You've been transported into the distant past - eighty five million years, to be exact. We're currently in the Cretaceous period."

He's not sure what to expect - anger, disbelief…but instead he gets silence.

"When I recognised you," Malcolm goes on, quietly, "It was because I was reading a reissue of your books. Someone came across them and had them reprinted - I suppose it was a sort of 'I told you so' gesture on their part. When I read them, I was studying at Imperial in London - living in accommodation inside a protective dome. The atmosphere had become almost unbreathable - thick with pollutants and traversable only with breathing equipment. Just as you predicted."

Falker looks at Malcolm for a long time, "People told me to stop. Told me I was a damned crank."

"It might've looked that way - but, a century down the line, they realised that you weren't. Unfortunately, by that time, it was too late to reverse the damage."

From his vantage point, Taylor watches Malcolm's bemused expression at their apparent acceptance. It's strange - they should be reacting: being angry, being scared - or at least something. Instead, they seem to have just taken it on board. Well, not really - more like decided to set the fact aside and not think about it: it's too much of a shock to contemplate.

It'll happen in the end, of course. They'll find they have to accept it, and freak out. Right now, however, they're probably just taking in the fact that there were twenty people on a boat - and now there are just four. Panicking over the fact that they're no longer in their own time can come later. Taylor isn't looking forward to that.

They've done what Malcolm hoped to do - witnessed the precursors to a wormhole, watched it open and been in a position to rescue any survivors that came through. Now they can go home.

And deal with the fallout.


	21. Swarm

**A/N:** Thanks for the review, Leona - yes, things are going to be interesting! Sorry for the delay - but you'll be pleased to know that we're back on track again, so here's the next chapter to savour...

* * *

Chapter Twenty-One

 _Swarm_

Sharon is standing at the door, her expression nervous, "I'm sorry, Max. I've been ordered to take Erin to the nursery."

It's barely first light, and there's not a soul about.

"You'll have to wait, Sharon. She's not up yet."

"I've been told that she has to go right now - I'm really sorry. They said that if she wasn't ready, you had to pack her clothes for the day to go with her." She looks really unhappy now, "I've got to go to see Maddy after I've delivered Erin. And then fetch in the other kids, as well."

"But why? Why's he doing this?" She has no idea why she's asking, because Sharon's hardly likely to have been told the answer to that question. It's all about control - that much is obvious - but it seems to go beyond merely controlling her. Presumably Jackson wants to hold the entire colony to ransom through its children; is he going to make people work for nothing, or something like that?

Trembling, as she knows that it probably won't be long before Jackson pays the visit he's been promising, Yseult goes through to pack a small bag of garments for Erin, before going to wake her. It's no surprise that the little girl clings to her and screams the place down as one of the two men who came with Sharon prises her out of her mother's arms.

"For God's sake, she's not even two yet!" Sharon is now angry, "Stop it! Let me have her - she knows me."

"Shut up and get moving." The other member of her escort intervenes, then turns to Yseult. "You, stay put."

"Like I have a choice?" she demands, angry and tearful at her daughter's mistreatment.

"I'm so sorry, Max, I promise I'll keep her safe once she's in the nursery - I promise!" Sharon is also in tears now - equally appalled.

"I know - it's not your fault, Sharon - just make sure she's okay!" Yseult calls across as she's shoved back into the house, and the door pulled to behind her.

Shaking violently, she re-engages the deadlock, and hurries through to the bedroom. It takes a bit of shoving to move the unit, but once it's away from the wall, she removes a small piece of the wall panel and retrieves her ornamental sword. After what Mike did to her, there is no way - no way in _hell_ \- that she's going to let Jackson get what he wants. If she has to kill him to prevent it, then she will.

Assuming, of course, that she can bring herself to do it.

After two tense hours, a knock at the door causes her to stop sharply, a lurch in her stomach. She'd call out to demand who's there - but her mouth has gone dry, and she can't get the words out.

"It's the shopping fairy, Max."

Boylan.

Relieved, she hastens to the door, and looks out through the window panel to see that he is, as promised, standing at the door - and there is no sign of the dreaded Jackson. Then, and only then, will she open it.

"Just me, kiddo." He says, reassuringly, a bag in his hands, "Some provisions, as promised."

"Where's Jackson?"

"The Command Centre, last I saw him." Boylan's eyes flick down to the bag briefly. There must be a missive in there.

"Thanks, Tom."

"I'll be back tomorrow."

She nods, fighting down a strong urge to beg him to stay with her, and closes the door again. It takes all her fortitude not to start burrowing into the bag, but instead carry it through to the kitchen and unpack the foodstuffs within. There probably isn't anyone watching her - but one can't be too careful.

There it is. Hidden at the bottom of the pile of provisions. Moving into the corner of the kitchen, where she's not visible from any windows, she unfolds the rice paper.

 _Shannon's under house arrest. So's Chris and Raj. Elisabeth's allowed into the infirmary and Josh to the bar. All kids are back at school or nursery - to keep people behaving. Everyone else is in the fields. Make sure you have a weapon - Jackson keeps talking about you because Malcolm's not here. He's gonna pay a visit because he thinks you're a bit of a weak flower and it's Pete who does the work. Prove him wrong, kiddo._

 _Hang tight. Will try and drop by as much as I can to keep an eye for you. Sharon's going to keep a close grip on Erin so they can't use her._

 _B_

 _PS Eat this_.

In spite of the warning, she can't help but smile at the final sentence. At least she knows that Jackson is seriously planning on making her be some sort of concubine to him - and he'll probably threaten Erin to make her do it, too. Boylan is looking out for her, while Sharon will do what she can to keep Erin safe; but it looks very much as though she really is going to have to prove that she is not, as Boylan puts it, a 'weak flower'.

Suddenly, the humour of the situation is gone. Grimly, she rips up and consumes the rice paper. Then she goes to fetch her sword, and conceals it in the sofa. If he comes in, she's going to have to lure him to her couch, pour him a drink, pretend he has her at his beck and call, play coquettish…

And almost certainly kill him.

* * *

The silence in the house is oppressive, and Jim wanders back and forth in frustration. Zoe is now at the school, the teachers doing their best to continue lessons despite everyone knowing that the children in the classes are now hostages, not students.

Boylan's latest missive leaves him even more worried - as he has made it clear that, while all of the single women are apparently at risk, Yseult is in particular danger; as Jackson has essentially decided to victimise her thanks to her lack of a nearby husband, and her 'senior' status. It's reverse snobbery at its most vicious; she has academic credentials, which he lacks, and she's vulnerable as none of the other senior staff are. Elisabeth has her importance as a surgeon, and his presence; as does Maddy. Yseult, on the other hand, has no one other than Pete, who is forbidden to go anywhere near her house.

His eyes scan over the shopping that Boylan used to hide that letter, and is hard put not to grab something and hurl it across the room. God - he's so damn _helpless_. Any act on his part will lead to some sort of unpleasant outcome for Zoe - that much has been made very, very clear to him. Everyone who has kids is equally trapped - and those who don't have been advised that a random child will be picked instead. Thus no one dares to object to whatever might happen from now on.

God alone knows what'll happen when Taylor gets back; guaranteed he'll be locked out, though whether Jackson and his crew will be brave enough to actually do some _real_ killing remains to be seen. They've been pretty much all bark and no bite so far - fists and boots aside - and the accumulation of overall cowardice is likely to stay their hands once they face a serious threat. None of them have ever been OTG - so they don't know the real dangers that lie beyond the fence-line: dangers that could get in if that perimeter isn't guarded and maintained.

His back and forth travel takes him past the window, and he looks out to see that Jackson is making his way down the pathway between the houses in the morning light with an unpleasant looking swagger. Jim clenches his fists in hopeless anger - it couldn't be more obvious where he's going. And there's nothing that he can do to stop it.

There's more oppressive silence in Yseult's house, as she sits and frets. The sword is secreted in the couch, so she can act if she must. The thought of actually having to seriously hurt - or even kill - someone to protect herself is horrible. She's had to do it before - she struck Mike over the head with a heavy hammer in order to stop him from pushing Malcolm onto the furnace; but that was down to a primal instinct: the need to protect the man she loved from being cruelly murdered in front of her eyes. This time, she's planned what she'll do - and she's not at all sure that she can be so cold-blooded as that.

A jug of juice sits in the fridge, and she's found a small remnant of some of the sedative medication that Elisabeth prescribed for Malcolm when he was still recovering from his traumatic experiences in the Badlands. It's still just about inside its expiry date, so it should be effective, though she can't vouch for the quantity. That, in a glass of juice, might put Jackson out for the count, and thus keep her safe for another day - assuming, of course, he's willing to drink it.

The sound of a heavy footstep on the verandah captures her tense attention, and she looks up at the door, sharply. Her hands go horribly cold with fear, and there's a sharp lurch in her stomach. And this time, there's no voice from without announcing the presence of an altogether more welcome laconic Aussie.

She wants to ignore it - but she knows that she can't. Shaking with all manner of unwelcome emotions and memories, she rises and walks to the door.

As she unfastens it, it is pushed inwards quickly and with a solid shove, causing her to stumble back several paces. Jackson stands in the doorway, and looks around the meticulously re-tidied house with a lazy smirk, "Talk about a woman's place. Just where you should be."

She has no answer to that that would wound, so she remains silent and hostile. Typical; not only is he a complete stereotype bully, he's a stereotype chauvinist, too. Oddly, the realisation serves to reduce her fear of him, as he now seems altogether more pathetic - he is so threatened by her that it looks as though he needs to find some way to exert power over her. She has an academic career behind her; she is respected, given control of an entire department - while his role in this Colony is to be in charge of one small group of people who plant stuff.

"I'd say 'come in', but it looks like that's superfluous."

Jackson ignores her, and makes his way into the lounge, "You know the score. You do what I say, and your kid comes home tonight. You say no, and she stays away until you change your mind. Got that?"

She watches him as he looks around the house, "Wow - must be nice to be rich."

"In what way?" Yseult looks bemused; no one earns enormous amounts in the colony - though it has to be admitted that she, as a member of the senior team with extensive responsibilities, does earn rather more than a man who plants stuff. Even so, no one lives in poverty, so his argument is barely valid.

"Swanning around, doing stupid stuff that doesn't help anyone."

"What - such as make shoes for them to wear, and clothes? Prepping us for a time when our technology starts to break down? Of course - I've been wondering what I've been doing with myself all these years. What was I thinking?" She turns to him, "Drink?"

He smirks again, clearly amused at her sarcasm; "Sure. Why not?"

Fetching out the juice, she pours out two drinks, unsure whether he'll accept a drink if she doesn't have one, too. Turning, she can see he's examining one of her wedding pictures with Malcolm, that vile smirk on his face again - a look that a lot of people have when they mention the Chief Science Officer. Or, at least, they used to.

Hastily, she fetches out the small ampoule of sedative and tips it into the juice, before concealing the offending article back in her pocket. Just in time, too - as he turns back to her. Knowing better than to smile, she holds out the drugged glass, her eyes wary.

"Cheers." He looks at her again, that horrible gaze that seems to imagine what she's looking like underneath her clothes. There's only one man who's allowed to see her so attired - or rather _not_ attired - so she lifts her own glass to her lips and glares back, "Nice. Like that sulky look. Keep it on in bed, won't you? Not anything else, mind."

Still smirking, he downs the entire contents of his glass in six, swift gulps.

She has no idea how long it'll take for the sedative to kick in, and the last thing she wants is to have to fight this pig off once he decides he's had enough of waiting. He might not be as big as Mike was, but he's still too strong for her. Besides, she wants matters to progress no further than the couch, where she can get at that sword if the worst really does come to the worst.

Ignoring his leering, she moves back to the couch and sits down, "So, what is it about me that interests you?"

Jackson shrugs, "Who said anything about interested? You get the praise and the treats from Taylor, while we do all the hard work. I want to show you just who really calls the shots in this place."

"So I've got too big for my proverbial boots?" she watches him, waiting to see if he starts to show even the slightest hint of sluggishness. So far: nothing.

"You should just do two things: drop kids and keep house while the men do the work." He says, with pompous sanctimoniousness.

"Oh, come on. I know it's the Cretaceous - but that doesn't mean biblical times. Or medieval, for that matter." Yseult scoffs, "If you can't handle a woman having authority then you're in the wrong place. Either that, or you're doing this on purpose to piss me off because you think it's funny."

He doesn't seem keen to answer - but there's something odd. A strange sound that she can't identify that captures her attention, and suddenly she isn't interested in him anymore, "Can you hear that?"

"Don't try and change the subject." He mumbles, suddenly sounding drowsy, "C'mere and get your top off."

Ignoring him, Yseult moves across to the window and looks out. Yes - there's something she can hear; a strange, brittle noise like rushes battering together at the edge of a lake. It's becoming more insistent, and it's definitely coming from outside.

Behind her, there's a scuffle, and then a thud. She turns to see that Jackson has tried to get up, but has instead fallen over and is now sprawled across the floor. He's not out yet - but it's not looking like it'll be long.

Leaving him where he lies, she opens the front door and looks out, and then up. "Oh, shit…"

The rattling sound is coming from millions of pairs of wings, as the skies above the colony darken, concealed behind an impossibly large multitude of insect bodies.

The timing is impeccable; with pest control compromised, the one thing they don't need has just arrived.

A bloody great swarm of locusts.

* * *

Sitting at the kitchen counter, trying to persuade himself to swallow a cube of tofu on top of some salad leaves - a dim prospect even though it's been covered in chilli sauce - Jim is distracted by the sudden sound of rattling, like palm fronds on a window in the midst of a strong breeze. Bemused, he abandons his unappetising lunch and hastens to the window. The sound is coming from outside - that much he can tell; but he isn't permitted to leave - and there are two thugs outside who'll push him straight back inside again at gunpoint if he pops his head outside.

The noise is getting louder, and his curiosity is close to overcoming his discretion, until he hears the sound of running footsteps, and someone is hammering on the door, "Jim! Come out - quick!"

He turns and calls through, "Max? What're you doing out there? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine - Jackson's out for the count, I managed to drug him - but we've got bigger problems. You need to get out here!"

The guards must be gone - that's the only reason she could possibly have been allowed to approach his door. Immediately, he snatches the door open to see her outside, "What the hell?"

"Look." She turns, and points upwards.

"Jesus…" Jim remembers Chris's words about locusts; _it's the worst time of the year for locusts, and they make holocene locusts look abstemious_. "There must be millions of them…"

"At least." Yseult turns, "Jackson's asleep in my lounge - we need to do something. Is Chris still in his house?"

"Probably. Come on - we need to get the hell out and try and protect the crops."

"If we're not too late." Yseult is still looking up at the horrible crowds of insects that are already descending on the fields, "They should've started the countermeasures as soon as the first hints of the swarm were detected. I'll go and fetch Chris."

"And I'll go and see what we can do in the fields." Jim answers, "Get Chris down there as soon as."

"I'll pinch a rover if I have to." She promises, and flees.

Jim takes to his heels. It's nearly three quarters of a mile to the nearest outpost of the fields, where people are already looking up at the sky and pointing. With all of the pest control team engaged elsewhere, no one has the first idea what to do.

"Where are Pest Control?" Jim's holler captures their attention, and they turn to look at him, "W _here the hell are they?_ " his volume goes up, "Someone find at least one of them! Move!"

One of the crowd turns and bolts for the orchards. God - what the hell are the pest control team doing _there_? Who was the idiot who assigned that work to them?

He's been there less than five minutes when a spare rover pulls up nearby, disgorging Yseult and Chris, "They're running around like headless chickens back at the compound, Jim," She reports, "Jackson's still out cold - but I don't think he'd be any better. What do you need us to do?"

"Chris - I've got someone fetching back the pest control team. Get them doing whatever they need to do. Is there anything we can do while they're busy?" Jim turns to look across the wide expanse of fields that stretch for a good two miles beyond where they stand. Already the enormous swarm is starting to settle. If they don't move seriously fast, then that's the entire grain crop gone - and they can't afford to lose it.

"All I can suggest is getting people in amongst the crops with sheets of plastic and trying to drive the bastards back up into the air." Chris says, "If you can do that, we can charge up the pesticide cannons - just be aware that we'll need everyone out of the way when we fire. The pesticide's derived from local fungus - but it's still not something you want in your lungs. We'll start a siren two minutes before we fire - get people into the sheds as soon as we do. They've got protective air-filtering systems. People should stay in there for an hour after the pesticide settles. We'll sound the siren again as soon as it's safe to come out."

"Jim," Yseult turns to him, "We'll deal with this - you get back to the Compound. They really are panicking up there, so I think you should take Guzman and turf them out of the Command Centre while they're still in a mess. Take the rover."

He nods, "Good luck."

"Thanks. I think we're going to need it."

He feels bad, abandoning Chris and Yseult to try and salvage next year's food supply - but if things are going to hell in the compound, then it's now or never if he wants to regain control. Already, Guzman is sprinting across towards him, "Do you want a hand, Mr Shannon?"

"Get in. We're going to kick those bozos out of the Command Centre and make damn sure that they realise they're in danger of starving us all out."

"Count me in." Guzman grins, as Jim starts up the engine.

* * *

As always, the temperature has dropped precipitately as the sun has dipped below the horizon, and everyone's grateful for the large heater that sits in the centre of their camp. Dunham and Lynott are busy setting up a perimeter: they haven't seen anything large and carnivorous in this neck of the woods since the Bambiraptors trailing them got washed away, but it always pays to be cautious.

Paula has opened another small vial of distillate into a bottle of water and Taylor continues to plug away at it. The four new people in their party are vulnerable enough as it is without him going off again. So far, none of them seem to have shown much shock or confusion at their surroundings - but then, it's a massive heap of information to take in in one go, and the chances are that it hasn't sunk in that they're not going back.

He watches them, intrigued. The young man - what was his name? Oh yeah: Diego; is sitting alongside his father, while the girl, whose name he's now forgotten, sits very close to him, his free arm wrapped about her shoulders. Looks like they're an item, then. The professor is investigating Malcolm's plex, comparing it with equipment that he has access to in his own time. From Malcolm's expression, it's pretty clear that he's convinced - as Taylor is - that the guy is on a nerd-trip with the specific intention of ignoring the fact that he's now in the age of Dinosaurs. The dad is drowsing as the meds Paula gave him have kicked in while his leg mends - and probably isn't thinking much about anything at all.

Now that all's quiet, his mind flips back, inevitably, to thinking of the Colony; wondering how Shannon's getting on. While he trusts Shannon to the ends of the earth and back, it's the other factors - natural disasters, technological foulups and the like - that really bother him. No matter how well prepared you are, some things can always blind-side you; and, now that the big science party is over, he wants to get back and make sure that everything's still in one piece.

He takes another sip, and grimaces, as Mira sits down beside him, "Hell, this still tastes like crap."

"Proves it's doing you good, Commander." She smirks "I never trust medication that tastes nice. So, back to camp at first light, and prep to go?"

"Hell, yeah. Been there, done it, bought the t-shirt. The sooner we get back to the colony, the sooner we can settle in our new arrivals. This environment's hardly the place for a proper counselling procedure."

"And you've got one?" She asks, "We've never had accidental arrivals before. Pilgrims always knew what they were getting into before they arrived. How the hell do you help someone come to terms with being snatched into the past against their will?"

"God knows." He admits, "I'll get Dr Shannon onto it as soon as we get back. She's sure to have someone on her staff who can help."

"I'd tell them that they're lucky - the other sixteen people on board didn't make it. But that's no consolation if they've got family back in the future that they'll never see again."

Taylor turns to look at her, "Like you?" he says, quietly; sympathetically.

Her gaze falters, and she is suddenly closely examining her boots, "Like me." She agrees, equally quietly.

"Then you understand something of what they're going through."

She shrugs, "I'm no counsellor. Don't subject them to my idea of a pep talk."

"Fine." Taylor's expression crinkles into a kindly smile, "I'll have Malcolm do it."

She snorts with mild laughter, "That would be a sight to see - except for the fact that it'd be a disaster on both sides."

They look up as Dunham approaches, "The perimeter's set, Sir."

Taylor nods, "Good work. I'll take first watch with Mira. You take second, Lynott third. You two get your heads down."

"Yes Sir."

Across the other side of the heater, Malcolm is feeling more and more uncomfortable. Falker has been showing a depth of interest in his plex that even he is sure comes from a need to ignore realities in favour of minutiae. The diminution of his obnoxiousness has led to a commensurate increase in self-awareness and empathy that he never used to have - and he can see that the small group of survivors are dealing with the shock of their arrival by simply _not_ dealing with it. Being a man more than capable of making a bad situation worse with a sequence of poorly chosen words, he is now almost too nervous to say anything at all, for fear of triggering an explosion.

Allowing Falker to babble on about the copies of his books that Malcolm has had stored on his plex for several years, he dredges his memory for anything he can recall about the man's private life. While information about the rest of the people on the _Madre de Dios_ was scanty to say the least, there was much discussion about Falker - thanks to his regular articles in fringe magazines, self-published tomes and appearances upon television programmes with an apocalyptic bent - and he is sure that the man had no family to speak of. He had been married, but that had ended in a highly acrimonious divorce without any children involved. There was no mention of any new 'significant other' type relationships - but that doesn't mean there wasn't one. He has no idea of the circumstances of the other three - and he's too afraid to ask.

Then, without warning, the young woman rises to her feet and crosses to the sled upon which have been placed all manner of boxes and crates salvaged from the ship, where she begins to rummage about, almost obsessively.

"Where's my stuff?" her expression is anguished, "There's a box with my name on it - why isn't it here?"

"I think we only fetched out provisions." Malcolm says, getting up and coming across to join her, "What are you looking for?"

"I…" she looks embarrassed, "I have a cuddly toy dog. A mascot - his name's Mr Thompson. I just want to find him."

"I don't think we searched the personal quarters, Janet." He looks across to Mira, who shakes her head.

"No - I have to go and get him. I can't leave him behind - he's been all over the world with me." Already, she's turning to approach the perimeter, and Malcolm has to grab her arm to stop her walking into the fence line, "Let go! She said that the ship was like a bomb, I can't leave Mr Thompson to be blown up! You don't understand - he's really important!" she's suddenly almost in tears.

He would dismiss her grief - but he can think of a small, cuddly toy cat called Schmidt, sitting on Yseult's side of their bed, and he knows that she would be just as heartbroken if she lost him, too.

"I'm sorry, Commander - I think we should go." He turns, and is not surprised to see a scandalised look upon the Commander's face, "We'll be as quick as we can."

Mira's on her feet, "I'll go with them. Don't worry - I'll get them back alive."

"Are you crazy?" Taylor is staring at them both, "If that thing goes up, then you're all going up with it. What am I supposed to tell Max if you end up dead, Malcolm?"

"It's something we need to do." Malcolm says, surprisingly firmly, "I promise we'll be careful."

"That's supposed to reassure me?" Taylor asks, "You said yourself that the ship was like a bomb, Mira."

"The sooner we go," She answers, "The more chance we have of getting the dog and getting out before it goes up. As long as we go on foot and don't strike any sparks, that should keep us safe."

He wants to order them to stay put - but then he remembers his order. The one telling them not to obey any of his orders. He sags, "Just be quick. And don't get killed."

"Thank you, Commander." Malcolm turns to Janet, and then to Mira, "Shall we?"

* * *

Their walk across the sand of the crater is brisk. There's no other way to get there, so they move as quickly as they can on a surface that is not designed for fast movement.

"I'm sorry," Janet's expression is still pained, "I can't be without Mr Thompson - I just can't. He's been with me since I left home."

"My wife has a cuddly toy cat that she's had since she was a child," Malcolm explains, slightly out of breath, "She'd understand. That's why I'm doing this - I don't think I could ever look Schmidt in the eye if I went home and hadn't rescued your dog."

Behind them, Mira rolls her eyes. Such sentiment…

And then she remembers Sienna's favourite teddy bear…the one she dropped and lost when she was six. How heartbroken the little girl had been by her loss. Stung by the thought, she picks up her pace, "We need to be quick. The fumes were pretty bad when we got out, so it's only going to be worse now."

Every step towards that heeling fishing boat seems to take forever - as though they are hurrying, and yet make no forward momentum at all. As they draw closer, Malcolm feels a growing sense of nervous dread that the bloody thing is going to explode and pepper them with shrapnel where they stand: shredded to death in the search for a cuddly toy - he must be out of his mind.

It's probably not taken as long as it felt, but now the great hull is looming over them, and Malcolm hands out a pair of torches, "Where were your quarters?"

"Close to the room where you found us." Janet says, "I can show you." There's no mistaking the desperate hope in her eyes that they're not too late.

Skirting around to the other side, where the rail is easier to reach, Malcolm gives Mira a bunk up so that she can get aboard, and then she helps them up to join her, before they scramble back up to the hatch, and make their way inside.

Even as he does so, Malcolm curses at the reek of fuel, "Hell, it's going to be hard to breathe down there - do you have breathing apparatus?"

"I don't know." Janet admits.

Mira snatches out a large bandanna that she's been wearing around her neck, "I've got this."

Malcolm quickly fumbles into his pockets and finds a large kerchief that he's been using to mop sweat out of his eyes, while Janet unties the scarf from around her head. Primitive, but all that they have to hand, the three tie their respective cloths over their mouths and noses.

"We'll have minutes at the most once we're in there." Malcolm warns, "We go in, get the box, and get out."

"Is it metal?" Mira asks.

"No, it's plastic."

"That's something. Come on. Let's go."

 _I can't believe I'm letting them do this_ …Mira thinks to herself as she lowers herself into the tilting corridor again. Fortunately, Janet knows her way around, and quickly leads them into the tumbled mess that was once her cabin. Equally, she knows what she is looking for, and snatches up a small plastic crate covered in stickers, "This is it."

"Right. Everyone out. Now." Mira's order is firm - not that anyone wants to disobey it.

"Where's the professor's quarters?" Malcolm asks, suddenly.

"Don't you dare." Mira warns, "We're risking our lives now - that information's no use to anyone, so it's not worth saving."

"He might find it useful." Malcolm counters, "Besides, I want to see how right he was."

"Are you crazy? Every second longer we stay, the more chance we die in here. Come on - we go now!"

"It was in the room we were in." Janet offers, "I'll get it."

"The hell you will." Mira snaps, "You two, out. Get on your way back to the camp. I'll get it. Were there any other laptops in there?" she's never seen one, but she knows what a laptop is.

"No, just his." Janet's eyes are frightened, "Please be careful."

"Get moving." There's no disobeying _that_.

Cursing himself for his foolishness in listening to the young woman's arguments, Malcolm quickly starts the climb back out, "Come on - you first." He helps her over the doorway back onto the side of the ship, before dropping the box over the side, and lowering her in its wake. In short order, he is beside her, and guiding her away, "Come on. Is there anything else in that box you need?"

"Just photos. It's Mr Thompson that matters." In the torchlight, he can see the bulbous shape of a small plush toy within, and again he knows that he couldn't have made her leave that dog behind - any more than he could force Yseult to abandon Schmidt.

Still slightly dizzy from the fumes, he leads Janet back towards the crack in the crater wall, following the trail of footprints. Just as it seemed to take ages to reach the bloody thing, now it seems as though their progress away from it is nightmarishly slow - no matter how hard they plug on, the ship's still right behind them.

Finally, they reach the crack, and Malcolm hastily sends her through, "Go on. I'll stay here and wait for…"

He doesn't finish the statement - a huge flash of yellow light behind him is followed by a hideous _crump_ -like sound as the petrol fumes ignite inside that ship. Appalled, he turns, and sees that - as Mira feared - the ship has exploded into fragments.

The light of the explosion has killed his night-vision, and he stares helplessly into the dark. God, where the hell is Mira? Did she get out? Was she hit by shrapnel?

Staring desperately, trying to stop seeing only the negative imprint of the blast on his retinas, he looks out into the wide expanse. If she's dead, then they're in serious trouble. She's the only person who can be guaranteed to get them out alive.

And her death is his fault.


	22. Homeward Bound

**A/N:** Thank you for your reviews, Leona and Hossfan - yes, it was a pretty convenient infestation, wasn't it? Now, of course, they have to see if they can get it to move on before they have no harvest left. No need to apologise, Hossfan - much as reviews warm the proverbial cockles of my heart, they're not obligatory. The important thing is that you're enjoying it, and thus my work here is done!

I was very keen to make Mira a more sympathetic character: given that much of her betrayal was forced from her through the use of her daughter as a bargaining chip, I thought it would be nice to free her from that burden. While the grief of her loss will never go away - she's a strong woman, and she's getting on with life; or, at least, she was until the last chapter. But has she made it? Wait and see...

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Two

 _Homeward Bound_

It's chaos in the marketplace as Jim and Guzman pull up. People manning the vegetable stalls are frantically trying to stop whopper insects from chowing down on their stock, while others are fleeing for shelter, as the creatures are so numerous that it's impossible not to be hit by them, and there are lots of spines on those long legs. Injuries aren't major, as the locusts aren't the size of cows, but they'll still give a robin a run for its money.

The Command Centre is conspicuous by the degree of desertion around it. The men who one might, at one's most optimistic, refer to as 'guards' have fled with everyone else, while the new 'senior staff' seem to be hiding inside, as the doors are closed and all of the shutters are very thoroughly down. At least no one seems to have weapons at the moment.

"C'mon." Jim takes the steps two at a time, eager to get upstairs and inside, as he is being bashed by insects just as much as anyone else. The only good thing is that they're not as big as those nasty pterosaurs, or as aggressive. Their danger is their appetite, not their temperament. He doesn't need to look behind him to know that Guzman is in his immediate wake.

Bursting in though the doors, he can see that everyone present knows precisely nothing about what to do. Most of them are squabbling pathetically amongst themselves, seasoning their discourse liberally with swear-words as their tempers grow ever shorter. Only one - Thackeray, if Jim remembers rightly - seems to be attempting to actually _do_ something, shouting down a comm unit, "Jackson! Where the hell are you? What do we do? Pick up, for God's sake!"

A quick scan of the room reveals precisely zero weaponry, other than the ornamental sword on the wall that Yseult presented to Taylor after her first husband died. If there are guns outside the weapons store, then there are none here, "Everybody, SHUT UP!"

To his surprise, they listen to him, and he has their attention at once, "Forget Jackson - he's out of it. What are you gonna do about this?"

They are all staring at him, then at each other. So, despite his apparent retention of a senior team, Jackson was no more willing to share power than Parker by the look of it - and none of them can do anything without his authorisation. Not that they seem able to do anything even if they had it. Most of them pick fruit, for God's sake - what do they know about the pest control protocols? Do they even know what those protocols are beyond sounding one of the many alarm posts in the fields and making for the nearest vented shed? He might not know the details, but at least he knows that Chris is the one to order into action. Do these guys?

"What're you looking at me for? You're in charge now, not me. What are you gonna do? I can't do anything - you made that pretty damn clear. I'll do what you want me to do - but I need orders. What're you gonna _do_?"

If matters weren't so urgent, he'd be enjoying this. He might not know how to avert a locust infestation, but he knows who to ask, and who to trust to do it - that's the point of having a chain of command. These guys don't have one, and now they don't have any plan to fall back on. Did they really think that leading this colony was all about sitting back and letting the place run itself?

Not that it matters - those protocols are already being enacted; but these guys don't need to know that. What he needs them to do now is freak out and dump the mess back in his hands again - then he can get on with clearing it up. Surely they're not stupid enough to want to hang on to the illusion of control even in the face of losing an entire years' food crops…

Again, it's Thackeray that takes the initiative, "Forget it - I don't know what to do. You're senior staff - you know what to do, right?"

"I might." Jim says, with a maddeningly noncommittal expression.

"We gotta stop those locusts," he continues, "but I don't know who's in charge of doing that…someone must be."

"Has anyone actually bothered to find out?"

Silence.

"Then get the hell out of my way and let _me_ deal with it. We're senior staff for a reason - if you lot'd bothered to get your heads out of your backsides for even a minute, you'd realise it. Just give me back command, Thackeray. The sooner you do it, the sooner we can drive off these insects and save next year's food."

This is what he's best at - not politics, not people talking about 'groupthink' or 'the petty bourgeoisie' or any of that nonsense; it's this - dealing with trouble, facing a crisis and overcoming it at the head of a knowledgeable team. He just needs them to see it - and step down. If he overrules them, then Jackson'll almost certainly try to use that against him. The last thing he wants is to avert a crisis and be rewarded with an extended stay in the brig.

For such a simple decision, they seem to take ages, but finally Thackeray speaks for them again, "Okay - do it. We're out of here."

That's all he needs, "Right, the lot of you, get out to the market place and get people under cover. Now. Guzman, go check what's happening out there. He snatches the comm unit from Thackeray, "Chris, Jim here. Are you set?"

 _Almost. We need to get the right compound distributed to the cannons - Diane's setting that up now. Max is organising the evacuation of the fields - most people are trying to drive the bastards off by waving plastic sheeting for as long as they can. The sirens'll go off in the next two minutes._

"Will we be affected in the Marketplace?"

 _You shouldn't be. Max asked me to ask you to get Jackson out of her house. The wind's blowing away from you, so if you want to send Guzman over to arrest him, she'd be very happy._

"I'll send him over. Shannon out." Jim looks across to Guzman, who has already ushered the men outside, all of them grateful that someone else is now in charge, "Jackson's at Max's place - he's asleep right now. Go get him and make sure he wakes up in the brig."

"With pleasure, Mr Shannon." Guzman grins, "Welcome back."

* * *

It's still impossible to see, but nonetheless Malcolm all but strains his eyes to try and make out how much damage the explosion has wrought upon the assembled graveyard of ships. Mira's somewhere down there - is she alive? Is she injured? He can't begin to guess.

"I'm sorry!" Janet is distraught, "I'm so sorry! I just wanted to rescue Mr Thompson - I didn't want this to happen!"

"I know - believe me, I know." At once, his arm is about her shoulders, though his own mind is going at about a million miles a minute, "It was a risk - but we were willing to take it. She may be okay, she's more capable than you could even begin to guess. Besides, it was my fault, not yours - we found your stuff. I wanted to have that bloody laptop."

"What the hell happened?" Taylor has come into the crater now, followed by Dunham, "Are you okay?"

"We are - but Mira was trying to retrieve Falker's laptop." Malcolm answers, his expression badly shaken, "It was my fault. I was being an idiot again…she did it because I insisted we should have his data…"

"What for? Isn't it useless now?" Taylor is staring at him like he's gone out of his mind, "I thought _I_ was the one who needed medication to stop me going gaga!"

"I know!" Malcolm's voice rises in distress, "I just wanted to know if he was right! I thought I was over that sort of stupidity - but it appears that I'm not!" At once, he is on his feet, and stumbling back towards the flaming wreckage, clearly desperate to know that his foolishness has not caused her death, "Mira! _Mira!_ Are you okay? Where are you?"

Taylor turns to Dunham, "Get the girl back to the camp. For God's sake, don't tell Carter. If he thinks that she's dead, and Malcolm's responsible, I'll end up with two corpses on my hands."

"Yes sir." At once, he guides Janet back to the crevice to get her out of the crater.

Being considerably fitter, and stronger, than Malcolm, it doesn't take Taylor long to catch up with him, particularly as he is stumbling left and right, looking about frantically, and absolutely distraught. His old, obnoxious self has overtaken his better judgement, and someone's died for it. Oh, God - what will Max think of him over this? She might love him, warts and all, but how could she accept his sending someone to their death for the sake of a heap of data that he knew to be useless? This is him at his worst…his very worst…

"Malcolm, for God's sake, this isn't going to help anyone!" Taylor's voice interrupts his racing thoughts and he realises that he's on his knees, blubbering in the sand like an idiot. Slowly, he forces himself to get a grip, and looks up at the Commander, to see that there is far less angry censure in the man's eyes than he was expecting, "D'you think this has never happened to me? That I haven't made some dumb mistake in the field that killed people? God knows that if I blame you for this then that makes me the biggest hypocrite that ever lived! You know how good Mira is - if anyone could survive this, then she can."

"And if she hasn't?"

Taylor decides it's best not to answer that. They both know that, without Mira, their chances of getting back to the colony are almost less than zero. He hasn't got the first idea where they are, and only she really knows how to navigate properly with that damned sextant. Her death is almost certainly theirs. So she'd better not be dead.

The _Madre de Dios_ is still far too hot to approach, the flames raging as they consume the fuel that remains inside the ship's tanks, but there's large chunks of the vessel scattered in all directions, and a lot of the other metal-hulled vessels are also somewhat disassembled. If Mira got out of the ship, then she'll be around here somewhere - but if she didn't…

"I can't see her anywhere, Commander." Malcolm's voice is shaking again.

"Me either." Taylor agrees, hunting under sheets of metal, behind rocks. If she was blown out of the ship, of course, then she could be anywhere - but it's impossible to…

 _Thud thud thud….thud…thud…thud…thud thud thud._

He pauses, looking around, "Malcolm, did you hear that?"

"No. What?" The hope in that voice is such that Taylor shudders.

 _Thud thud thud….thud…thud…thud…thud thud thud._

He knows what that is - Morse Code. They might use radios and comm units, but there isn't a soldier alive that doesn't know how to communicate in that primitive sequence of long and short sounds. And he knows what it's saying. _S.O.S_.

 _Thud thud thud….thud…thud…thud…thud thud thud_.

Where's it coming from? Carefully, he turns, very, very slowly. The sound is quite regular, so he changes orientation before waiting for it again.

 _Thud thud thud….thud…thud…thud…thud thud thud_.

There - that piece of airplane - part of the cabin by the looks of it, but sturdier than more modern aircraft. She must be under there - perhaps she took refuge when she realised she wouldn't have time to get any further back…

 _Thud thud thud….thud…thud…thud…thud thud thud_.

"Malcolm! Over here!" It's clear that the curved bulkhead has been driven down into the sand, presumably trapping her under it, "Get stuff you can dig with - she's under this! Mira! We can hear you!"

 _Thud thud thud….thud…thud…thud…thud thud thud_.

It appears, however, that she can't hear them. Presumably her eardrums were affected by the explosion. In spite of her concerns, he grabs a nearby chunk of metal and begins to bash in response.

 _T-A-Y-L-O-R—H-E-R-E—W-I-L-L—G-E-T—Y-O-U—O-U-T—H-O-L-D—O-N_

Silence. Then, _O-K_.

"She's alive, Malcolm!" Taylor shouts back, knowing that that's the information that he'll most want to have, "Come on!"

Between them, they have two sheets of aluminium that serve as scoops. Taylor digs sand away from the bulkhead, while Malcolm stand behind to force it further away so it won't fall into the hole. Malcolm looks up to see, off in the distance, the lights of the rover as someone drives it down towards them. Hopefully, one of them's Paula. There's no way that Mira got out of _this_ misadventure entirely unscathed.

Again, he sets to work on clearing away the sand that Taylor removes as he burrows downwards, and - at length, there is a large enough gap for him to scramble down and reach in, before lugging Mira out of her refuge. A refuge that came horribly close to becoming her tomb.

Moving awkwardly on a clearly broken leg, she looks up at Taylor, "Thanks. I thought that was going to drive me right down into the sand. As it was, I didn't have much air left." In spite of everything, she sounds astonishingly businesslike. Then she turns to Malcolm, "I think you wanted this."

She's holding out the laptop.

Trembling, Malcolm takes it, "I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry - I was thinking like an idiot. I shouldn't have made you go after it - I could've killed you. God, I nearly did…"

"I got it. That's what counts. C'mon - let's get the hell out of here." She attempts to walk on her busted leg, and falls with a sharp cry. And that breaks her composure. In moments, she is crumpled against Taylor, sobbing in horror, while he wraps his arms around her, "Thattagirl. Let it out." She can deal with pretty much anything - but being entombed alive? He's not surprised she's cracked: he's not sure he wouldn't have done the same if it had been him. Beside him, he can see Malcolm is also on the floor, his expression livid with guilt and remorse. Damn - he's going to have to get the pair of them to put this to one side for the time being if he's going to get everyone back to the Colony.

And he can't guarantee there's enough of that distillate left to help him do it.

* * *

Paula hastens across the sand, "Is she injured, Commander?"

"Broken leg, I think." He answers, "Possibly perforated eardrums - you'll need to check that. She was pretty close to the blast."

She's not crying anymore, but seems loath to move from that comforting sense of arms around her. How long has it been since she last had someone do that? Taylor doesn't want to guess, but he shifts slightly, "Paula's here, Mira. She needs to look at your leg."

Mira moves slightly, but it's clear that she didn't hear him - only sensed the sound of his voice reverberating as her head rested on his shoulder. As she does so, he can see blood on her left earlobe - yes, her eardrums are perforated, and she's deaf. At least it'll only be temporary - but nonetheless, it's not going to be pleasant for someone who has relied upon her hearing to stay alive for years.

Fortunately, she notices that Paula's present, and immediately shifts, slowly, so that Paula can come in and examine her. Being deafened by the explosion, she's working only on what she can see and feel, but she knows that it's not just her leg, she's got a couple of fractured ribs by the feel of it, though she's pretty sure nothing's been punctured other than her eardrums, "I think I've cracked some ribs." She advises, though she can see from Paula's face that she's misjudged the volume, and spoken far more loudly than she needed to.

Paula nods, "I'll give you some analgesics to get you back to camp." She advises, speaking slowly and with exaggerated movements of her mouth in the hopes that Mira can lipread. She's not surprised at the nod. Of course she can, "I still have some fracture compound, so that should sort out your bones, though you'll need to rest for at least two days. I can't heal your eardrums until we get back to the colony."

"They'll heal themselves as long as I don't get them wet and infected." This time, she can see that her voice is less painfully noisy, "Let's get the hell out of here."

It takes a matter of minutes to inject the analgesic, and for Taylor to fashion a simple field splint to keep the bones from moving about too much. Getting her back to the rover is a more complicated procedure, but it's possible to seat her in the front passenger seat, while Paula and Malcolm cram into the rear seats and Taylor takes the wheel. It's likely that Dunham would have demanded to drive, but that would've left someone having to walk back.

Sitting behind Mira, Malcolm hugs the laptop to his chest and shudders at how close his demand for the wretched thing came to killing the only person who can be guaranteed to get them all home safely. Has he learned nothing in all the years he's been in Terra Nova? Nothing is worth the loss of a life - particularly something that is of so little overall value to the future of the Colony. There aren't enough of them to screw up this world, and they've worked so damned hard to ensure that what energy they produce is clean that the chances of their doing so are slim to none. Once again, he's set aside his better judgement in his determination to prove a scientific point. Worse, if they hadn't gone back immediately, but waited until first light, she would've suffocated in that tiny space - pattering out that SOS until the end, and never knowing whether there was anyone outside to hear it. Deeply ashamed, he finds he can't stop the tears from escaping, but fights with himself not to show it. It's Mira who deserves the sympathy in all of this - not him.

By the time Taylor guides the rover out of the cleft in the rocks, dawn's breaking, and people are moving about in the camp. Everyone's looking at the rover, hoping that no one's been left behind. The relief on people's faces when they find that no one has been is heartwarming, as is the surge of volunteers to help Mira out of the vehicle and get her to the medical tent so that Paula can finish off treating her fractures.

Emerging from the rover once the crowd has departed, Malcolm crosses to the small group of survivors, and stops in front of Falker, "I think this is what you were looking for." He says, very quietly.

Immediately, Falker reaches for it, "That's it - that's it! You've got it! Thank you - God, you don't know what this means…my life's work is on this…everything that I needed to prove them wrong…" Then he pauses, "Where's the power cable? It's no use without that!"

"Probably carbonised." Malcolm advises, "The ship blew up just after Mira got out - she nearly died."

"What am I supposed to do with a laptop that I can't power up? That's years of research - and it's lost!"

"Bryce - don't…" Janet looks embarrassed, and shoots an apologetic glance at Malcolm, hoping he won't lose his temper.

He doesn't. Suddenly very, very tired, Malcolm turns and walks away to his tent.

* * *

The convoy has arrived back at the camp, and those who were not part of the escort are already working to get the injured up onto the platform so that they can rest while preparations begin for their departure. Bram is busy with figures on a plex, as Malcolm has retreated into himself somewhat since the incident in the crater, and Taylor is rather concerned - though he has other matters to think about. Dunham has already organised the security teams to get started on filling up the water tanks in the second Rhino, while he goes through the supplies they brought out of the ship. Most of it consists of foodstuffs that he's only vaguely heard of, but they look edible, and, when one has nothing else to eat, that'll do.

Mira's fractures have responded well to the compound, though the process is never particularly comfortable as the treatment accelerates the knitting of the bones. Thus she has retreated to the shade of the overhang, and sits quietly, cleaning her sextant again in preparation to navigate their homeward trek. She looks up as Taylor approaches and sits beside her, "Yes, Commander, I'll be okay to go as soon as you want to move."

"I'm sure you will, Mira. I wasn't going to ask that." Like Paula, he speaks slowly, and with exaggerated movements of his mouth.

"I'd rather not talk about it." She pauses, "My hearing's coming back a bit - you sound muffled, but I can make out what you're saying."

"I wasn't going to ask that, either."

She looks at him, bemused, "What, then?"

"The distillate's running out. Paula's got enough to get us maybe halfway back - and then that's it. I go senile again - and there's no certainty that Dr Shannon can get me back from it. I don't know how far gone I am, so that short time could be the clincher."

"Then we do what we did in on the way out. Malcolm's in charge of the convoy, I look after our survival and Dunham runs the Security team."

"And Paula keeps me knocked out."

"I'll do what I can to get us home as quick as possible." Mira says, "I can work from the front seat of a rover - I'll be stiff, yes, but I've known worse pain than that. We've got a fixed destination in mind, and I've marked our route, so we just head for home and don't spare the the horses."

"How long do you think it'll take?"

"A week, maybe two. Difficult to say." She admits, "I'm assuming that we won't be having to concentrate on being stalked like we were on the way out - it's too dry for bambis: there's no prey big enough to sustain them out here. We've been gone too long for any that saw us go to be waiting for us to come back. They're smart, but they're not _that_ smart." She pauses, "Malcolm's taking this pretty hard."

Taylor nods, "I know - he did something he's not done for a long time: be a complete ass over something stupid. He saw what it did to you and now he feels like hell about it. Particularly given that the guy he insisted on getting it for was only happy until he found out there was no power cable for it. Then he started complaining."

"Ah." Mira sighs, "so he's feeling guilty as hell, and even the person he demanded we get that laptop for is pissed at him about it. No wonder he feels bad. Once I'm more flexible, I'll have a word with him about it. I get the feeling that this is the first time he's made a decision that's nearly blown up in someone else's face. Or, in my case, literally."

Taylor looks at his watch, "Nearly time for some chow. I'll get Carter on it."

"I'd rather you didn't." Mira smirks.

Taking Mira's warning at face value, Taylor has designated Savage to prepare the evening meal while he goes in search of Malcolm, who has been rather conspicuous by his absence for much of the day. While he sympathises, the one thing he can't have right now is an expedition leader sulking in a tent - so it's time to kick him out of it.

As he suspected, Malcolm is absorbed in images of his wife and daughter, gazing miserably at them looking up at him from the screen of his plex, "Mind if I come in?"

Startled, Malcolm looks up and hastily sets the screen down, "Yes, er no…please come in, Commander." He rises, politely to his feet.

"When I was about your age." Taylor says, indicating that he sit again, before seating himself in a camp chair, "I had to lead a bunch of guys behind enemy lines; we'd been sent to disrupt communications between a low-ranking warlord and one of the really big hitters. We didn't have a lot of time to do it - and there'd been a whole pile of delays before we got out there. I had a choice between taking a quick route that might be watched, and taking a long one that wasn't. We had time to do both - but I wanted to get in there quickly, so I decided to take the quick route - through a narrow valley. We scouted it: nothing. My second in command was dead against it: convinced there were hostiles hiding on the sides of the hills, but I decided we were gonna do it anyway - the sooner we were in there, the sooner we'd get out and back to base - hit 'em hard, hit 'em fast. You know the drill."

Malcolm nods. It's not that dissimilar to Taylor's approach these days.

"Trouble is - he was right. There _were_ hostiles in those hills - and we'd missed 'em because they were so damn good at hiding in that terrain. It was a dumb mistake on my part - I didn't listen to the person who knew the region. Fifty of us went into that valley; only twenty two came out. We got through, and we blew the comms line - but near-on thirty people died that didn't have to. Because of me. So, I get it. I know what you're feeling - because I've done worse. Mira's not pissed at you, nor am I. You knew it was going to happen eventually, but you couldn't say when, so you made your call. It could've been worse - but she made it, and so she's still here to get us home."

Malcolm remains silent, turning Taylor's advice over in his mind, then he sighs, "I'm just not used to making decisions that can get people killed."

"Out here, it comes with the territory."

"So I'm learning."

The sudden sound of the tent flap being pulled back startles the pair of them, and they see Falker in the doorway, "What's taking so long? I would've had us on our way hours ago, for God's sake. I need to get somewhere to rig a power source for my laptop given that you didn't find it!"

Without waiting for an answer, he retreats.

Malcolm rises from the camp bed, "Much as I hate to admit it, he's got a point - I need to check that the inventory's sorted out." He pauses, "Mind you, I think I know why his wife divorced him now. He appears to be an utter dick."

Taylor snorts with amusement. It sounds like his pep talk has worked.

* * *

There are plenty of yawns as the party emerge from their various tents in the early hours. Now that the weather is growing hotter, the need to travel in those essential shoulder periods of relative cool is becoming greater, and Mira's demand that they observe safe travelling practices is backed up by Malcolm, and by Taylor - though he has again made it very clear that there are no more orders coming from him.

"You should all know." He says, as people check in their struck tents for packing aboard a rhino, "I have enough distillate to get me about halfway back. After that, it's anyone's guess what'll happen, so my prohibition of obeying orders given by me is still in effect. Malcolm's in overall command, with Mira in charge of survival and Dunham in charge of Security. Any questions?"

Silence.

"Are you sure that this man is capable of being in charge of an expedition?" Falker is already badgering him as he heads to his rover, "From what I gather, his experience is entirely based in labs."

"He's been out in this terrain more than you have, Dr Falker, and he got us out here without incident. If you have any issues with his leadership, take it up with him." Taylor turns to Janet, "Everything packed?"

She nods, "Yes, Commander Taylor. We're ready to go. Nurse Simpson says that she's settled Mateo in one of the lorries - he's not quite ready to sit in one of the cars yet."

He nods. That's a girl with a good head on her shoulders, albeit one overly sentimental about a cuddly toy dog, "Good. Get to your designated rover. You too, Doctor. Time to move out."

Falker makes to protest, but Taylor pointedly clambers into his rover, Dunham riding shotgun, and starts it up.

Mira is taking bearings, though she's having to do so sitting on a rock, as her leg is still a little unsteady, and she needs to stand as still as possible, "Right, we need to go straight south for the time being, Malcolm. Ready?"

"What - to go home to my wife and daughter? Whatever gave you that idea?"

"Nothing - other than the fact that you've had the rover running for nearly ten minutes - and it's not like you to waste the battery pack like that." She smiles at him as she sits in the passenger seat.

It's been a remarkable home from home - but in less than ten minutes, the outcrop is empty and silent.


	23. Restoration

**A/N:** Thank you again for your comments, ladies - always appreciated, and I'm glad you're enjoying the tale. Having abandoned things in mid-air at the Colony, it's time to go back and see how they're going to tackle the dual infestation problems...

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Three

 _Restoration_

From Yseult's viewpoint, it looks like utter chaos: people hurrying hither and thither, waving sheets of plastic, lashing out with shovels - whatever they can get their hands on to try and keep the enormous clouds of insects away from the green stalks of next year's grain supply. There are far too few people, and far too many locusts - but still they try; anything to protect the crops while the work goes on to prime the cannons with the appropriate pesticides.

Chris is busy on his comm unit, talking to people in the control unit, checking how soon they'll be ready. Then he looks up, "We've got something else we can try while we're waiting - it'll be another ten minutes at least before the cannons are ready."

She leans across the table that he's sitting at, "What? Is there anything I can do?"

"It's experimental - something Malcolm asked one of his people to set up: ultrasound - we were trying frequencies that would repel insect swarms. It was something he came across before the occupation."

She nods, remembering. Most people have probably forgotten - if they noticed in the first place - but the Sixers had used sound frequencies to direct a large dragonfly back and forth into the colony, and the concept had stuck in his mind as a possibility to protect the fields without using pesticides. Even though their measures are based on natural ingredients, they're still pretty toxic, and that doesn't fit with Taylor's game plan for Terra Nova.

"What do you need me to do?" She asks, all business.

"Get across to the control unit - the setup's in there. It's pretty straightforward - we've got speakers across the area, and all you need to do is work through the frequencies until you find one that has an effect. You'll be able to see if it's working - there's a view across the main spelt fields. Just be careful - these things aren't going to attack you, but there's a hell of a lot of them, so I can't guarantee there won't be collisions."

She smiles, and fetches out a pair of safety glasses, "I'll put these on - that'll keep them out of my eyes, at least."

Once outside, she is grateful that she thought of the glasses, as the locusts are like a blizzard of exoskeletons, battering into each other, into the ground, and into her. In some ways she wishes that she'd found some goggles. The control unit is a small cabin about a quarter of a mile from where she is now - so she can get there in two minutes or so if she runs. The trouble is, it's very hard to see where she's going.

Every now and then, the cloud clears enough for her to see the cabin ahead, and she keeps on going, forcing her way through the mess of insects. They're not malevolent - just hungry, but it's the colony's survival at stake, so they've got to be driven off. Even if it doesn't entirely work, if she can get them into the air again, then that'll do until the cannons can be fired.

People are still trying to scare the locusts off the crops - and the success rate is probably close to zero. For every insect that they drive off, at least two more land in its place, and already she can see that damage is being done. _Quickly…quickly…_

It feels like forever, but at last she's at the door, and scrambles inside, with only six or seven locusts in her wake, that the small team within quickly dispatch with a few well timed stamps on the floor.

"Has anyone tried the ultrasound?" She asks, breathing quickly from her haste.

"Not yet," One of the group turns to her, "We need to arm and prime a hell of a lot of cannons. The controls are over there - it's pretty straightforward - we've got a list of possible frequencies stuck on the wall. Try those."

"Will do." Yseult crosses to a separate desk, set alongside a wall with a good, wide window so that she can, as promised, see the effects her attempts are having. Equally, as promised, it's a pretty simple setup - all she has to do is switch on, and type in numbers to indicate the frequencies. She's familiar with the concept - people have been using ultrasound as an animal repellent for at least a couple of centuries - but no one's tried it on such a scale before. God knows if it'll work now - but anything's better than nothing if they're going to keep their food supply.

She scans the list - which seems to be a list of different animals, and the frequencies that work with them. Printed from an old source, it seems to consider the Colony to be vulnerable to cats, dogs, lizards and rats as much as insects; but at least she's got a set of figures to work with: 38 to 44 kilohertz.

"Okay…start at the bottom and work up." She mutters, and begins typing in numbers. Just as long as they repel, not attract…

It proves to be a frustrating exercise, as each change seems to briefly disturb the creatures, before they resume their predations. She doesn't dare to go up too quickly - in case she misses the one that really does the business - but it's not looking good as she reaches 42kHz, and once again all the swarm seems to do is shudder slightly.

"Oh, come on - give me a break!" Annoyed now, she has to force herself not to hurry. Behind her, she can hear the pest control team talking, and she knows that there's a problem - one of the ducts is blocked, and the cleaning mechanism is struggling to clear it.

Gradually, she works her way up, a fraction at a time, until she hits 43. Then 44. Still nothing.

"Damn!" she sits back, frustrated.

 _It was seriously clever, actually. They used a specific subsonic frequency to attract the dragonfly - its tympanic membranes could pick up the sound from miles away._

What frequency did they use? Malcolm identified it, and he told her, but she didn't retain the numbers after only one hearing. God…if only she could _remember_. But then, what's the point? Unless the dragonfly species eats locusts - which it might well do. They are, after all, insectivorous. It's got to be worth a go - but what was the bloody frequency?

Hang on a minute: _sub_ sonic. That's neither ultrasonic nor infrasonic. It must mean a sound that's lurking close to the range of normal human hearing - but not quite. Which means it's low, not high.

 _Think, think, think…_

 _It took me a while to work it out - I was trying ultrasound for a hell of a long time and it didn't make the blindest bit of difference, so I got fed up and started on the infrasound instead - but that didn't work either, so I started at 20Hz and began to work up - and then I found it at 32.8. Even though it couldn't fly, it still had a bloody good try at getting off the ground. It must be a mating call or something - probably the females calling the males._

"That's it!" Excited, even though she's not convinced it's going to work, Yseult quickly punches in the frequency, and sets it going.

For a moment, it looks like another dud - but then…

It's remarkable - the locusts are starting to move, slowly at the moment - as there are so many of them, and there's always the principle of safety in numbers. But gradually, the cloud lifts from the plants, and the creatures seem confused, going this way and that as though aiming to confuse a predator. That dragonfly species must be that predator, then - and they assume that there are creatures closing in. It probably won't drive them away entirely, but it's a sufficient distraction to give the team behind her the time they need to prep the countermeasures.

One of them turns to look out of the window, "Bloody hell…"

"Does that give you enough time to finish up?" Yseult asks.

"Two more minutes, and we'll have the sirens going, Max." He assures her, "As long as they stay up a bit longer, then that should give us the breathing space we need."

Relieved, she turns back to the rolling blizzard of insects, that are still confused and in the air; until, finally, the sirens sound to send the field teams to their shelters.

* * *

Jim is seated at Taylor's desk, working his way through sets of records. He is not surprised to find that the rosters have fallen apart, or that the few cameras they have watching the perimeter haven't had their footage saved for nearly six weeks. God, has it only been that long? It felt like months while it was happening…

The inventory of the armoury is no better, and he has no idea who has a weapon now. But then, with the hasty capitulation of the men in that he had confronted, it's likely that no one's going to start fighting him when he retakes command. Not while they're fighting to save next year's grain stocks, anyway. It's still damned annoying, though; the only way he can be sure of accounting for every weapon is to have an amnesty - and thus people will get away with stealing them. It's a pain, yes - but better that than someone hiding a weapon and someone's child finding it.

 _Guzman to Shannon_.

He picks up his comm unit, "Go ahead."

 _I've found Jackson. Sleeping like a baby - but he's a bit on the heavy side, so it'll be a bit longer than I expected getting him into the brig._

"Fair enough. If you need a hand, I can see if anyone's around."

 _No need. Pete's just shown up. Guzman out_.

Jim smirks as he sets the comm unit back down. Pete'll enjoy that - the worst thing for him was being unable to protect Yseult: something of a self-appointed duty in Malcolm's absence. Jackson's behaviour was a disgrace to the Colony as a whole, and Jim isn't entirely convinced that the man isn't responsible for Parker's death, either. The trouble is - how do they prove it? Can they?

Jackson won't confess to it - that's for sure. The only way is to get the others to drop him in it - though, with things as they are, he's pretty sure at least one of them will do that - particularly if they think that they're going to get kicked out of the colony. The chances of that happening are pretty slim; but the threat remains, and it's almost certainly lurking at the back of their collective minds.

He looks up, distracted by the sound of a distant siren, then another, and another. Good - that means they're ready to fire the pesticide cannons. Hopefully that'll be enough to save at least a proportion of their crops.

His comm unit goes again, and he picks it up, "Shannon here."

 _It's Chris - we're about to fire up the cannons; but we think we've managed to drive the locusts off the crops. We've been trying sound as a deterrent, but no one had the chance to really get it working. Max has just managed to find a frequency that bothers them, so it gave us some breathing space. Give us a couple of hours, and we should be locust-free._

"That sounds good, Chris. Keep me posted. Shannon out."

He resume his perusal of the official records, and sighs at their abandonment. Why do people think it's easy to run this place? Only a fool would really belief that Taylor sits up here and stares at the ceiling for hours on end - not when there's so much to keep track of. That's the whole point of the records. Now they've got a whopping great blind spot that he can't get back. As soon as everyone's emerged from the sheds, he's gonna re-assemble the security staff and set them to work on checking the perimeter. While it's not likely that there's severe damage, the one thing he doesn't want is encroachment by foliage - they can't see what's on the other side of the fence line if that happens.

He's still looking through the files, and finding things that are quite astounding: half-finished computer games, confidential staff files that have been read through as though they were magazine articles - and even some remarkably unpleasant pornographic images that he shut down as soon as he realised what they were. Thus he is not aware of the passage of time, and looks up in surprise as the door opens to admit Guzman and Pete.

"Jackson's still sleeping, Mr Shannon - but when he wakes up, he'll find he's no longer in Max's lounge."

"Good. Leave him to do that by himself and freak out over it. I imagine he'll be a total wuss now we're the ones with the power again."

"I have no doubt of it." Guzman agrees, cheerfully. Everyone knows that old adage about bullies being cowards. Some aren't - but most are.

"Well, I can tell you that he's one sick bastard." Jim advises, "Judging by the photos he left on the terminal screen, he's got a serious issue with women in authority. No wonder he was trying to pick on Max - she was the ultimate chauvinist's target. Only Elisabeth was a bigger one - but he didn't want to take me on."

"He didn't rate me, then." Pete says, crossly, "Must be because I'm a queen."

"I wouldn't call you that." Guzman admits, looking at Pete's enormously muscled arms, "Not when you're capable of ripping my head off."

"Oh, I wouldn't do that to you." Pete is grinning cheerfully, "You're too cute with that head on."

"What do you want me to do next, Mr Shannon?" Guzman asks, hastily, though Pete's grinning even more widely. They all know he's joking.

"Keep an ear out for the field sirens - as soon as they sound, get the security staff back to the marketplace and get them formed up. We need to have people on the gate, and I need to get patrols out to check the boundaries as soon as we can, so we can get any encroachment cut back. Round up our rogue senior staff - but don't put 'em in the brig yet. I don't want them anywhere near Jackson, not if we can get them to tell us who killed Parker."

"You think it was Jackson?"

"I'd bet all the terras in my pocket if I had any." He pauses, "If you can find Boylan, send him up, would you?"

"Will do." Guzman turns and departs.

"I'll get back to our compound." Pete volunteers, "Max might be more easygoing than that lot that were in here last - but she can be a right demon if the place is a mess."

Jim nods, then looks across as the tall forester opens the door, "Don't even think about it. I want Jackson to face Taylor _without_ broken bones."

"Spoilsport."

* * *

She doesn't complain - but Malcolm knows that Mira's extremely uncomfortable bunched up in the passenger seat, despite the efficacy of the fracture compound. But then, she's never complained about anything at all, ever, as far as he can figure out, so he keeps his eyes on the route ahead, and keeps a careful eye on her. Just in case.

Now that they're returning south, he wants to get moving as quickly as he can - given the length of time it took them to get here, he knows it's not an overnight job. He lost count of the number of times they were obliged to camp on the way down - probably because it became so regular that he didn't even think about it. It was only the stops where they were particularly concerned about those damned bambiraptors that really stuck in the mind.

At least they can move more quickly now, as they're not looking for anything - just making their way home. Well - home for most of the party. God alone knows how their new arrivals are going to behave once they get there. He's quite convinced that the only reason they haven't had any form of meltdown between them is because they can't take in how far back in the past they really are.

The one thing he wants to do - other, of course, than kiss the hell out of his wife - is get Taylor back as soon as possible. That distillate proved to be remarkable - but it's a temporary palliative, and it's running out. The only way to ensure that they don't lose him for good is to get him back and hand him over to Elisabeth as soon as they're through the gates - and he can't even call ahead to let them know that the convoy's coming back for at least another week.

"Don't be too much of a hero, Mira. I don't want you passing out - not while we're making such good time." He's learned long ago that it doesn't do to suggest to Mira that she's weak. Better to frame it as a potential inconvenience to the party as a whole rather than old-fashioned chivalry.

"Don't worry. If I start seeing spots, I'll let you know." She says, then smirks slightly, "Or heel over and throw up in your lap."

"The hell you will. These are my favourite trousers." He quips. Of course - he's a parent. What parent of a small child _doesn't_ live a life punctuated by regular outbreaks of vomit?

Now that he's been out in the desert for a reasonable time, Malcolm seems to have largely set aside his paranoia about running out of water - but not to the extent that he's willing to take risks. As soon as it becomes clear that the sun's getting too high for them to safely continue, he calls a halt, and Dunham organises a team to set up awnings in the lea of a rhino so that they can at least get some shade. Even the guards have to stay under it, so strong is the sunlight, so the fencing's out again. Not being one to miss an opportunity, however, Malcolm has already set up a rank of solar cells so that they can recharge the spare vehicle batteries, while Mira has rigged up one of the spare condensers to act as a primitive air conditioning unit. It's pretty close to being on its last legs anyway, so if they kill it, then it'll just be broken down for parts for the others.

"How long d'you think we need to stay here?" Malcolm asks, a little impatiently. God, he wants to get back now that it's all over.

Mira squints out into the bright sunlight, "At least four hours." She sighs, "We'll have people with heatstroke at the wheel if we go too soon - the louvres are all very well, but no one ever built one of these things with air-con in the cab."

They look up as Dunham approaches, "Sorry, Doctor - but your professor guy is trying to disconnect one of the batteries from the solar farm."

The pair look up at him, surprised, "What the hell is he doing that for?" Mira asks.

"Guess." Malcolm sighs, and clambers to his feet.

Sure enough, Falker is crouched over one of the rhino batteries in the full sunlight, cursing as he tries to figure out the connections. What is it about that damned laptop? The only way that they can power it up is to get it back to the Colony and jury-rig something - it's a project that Malcolm is quite looking forward to, as he delights in tinkering with electronics when he gets the opportunity, but now is most certainly not the time.

"Please don't do that, Doctor. We need the batteries to get us back to the Colony - if we lose a vehicle out here, then we're in serious trouble."

Falker ignores him, and continues to fumble. Annoyed, Malcolm crouches beside him, "Leave that alone and get back under the awnings." He's never given a direct order before, and it's rather difficult to sound as forceful as he'd like to; but he's been put in charge of the convoy, and what he says, goes.

"I'll get back under those sheets when I've got power for my laptop."

 _Oh, for God's sake_. Irked, Malcolm finds it in himself to speak assertively without sounding petulant, "If you don't leave that alone, I'll have Dunham confiscate the laptop and hang on to it until we get back to the Colony." What the hell is on the bloody thing, anyway? Surely he's not _that_ fixated on his data? Particularly now that it's no damned use to anyone anymore.

Falker turns and glares at him with a shocking degree of venom. While the comments he read about the man from critics were hardly complimentary, none of them ever pointed out just how unpleasant the man can be. He remembers reading some posts on an old forum somewhere that suggested the man was an out and out conspiracy theorist - but it's only now that he's beginning to wonder if those suggestions were right.

Rather than back off, however, he returns that glare with a steady gaze of his own, and watches as the man stands up and almost flounces back to the shelter of the awnings.

"I don't know about you." Malcolm turns to Dunham "But I'd 'accidentally' forget that blasted laptop if I could be sure he wouldn't turn round and walk back to get it."

"What's on it, Doctor?"

"God knows - but if it's just climate data, then he's even more of an idiot than I thought."

"I guess we'll find out once we get back." Dunham muses.

"True. Go and get yourself some water. We'll move on in about four hours."

* * *

The armoury is locked up tight - and Jim is relieved that Jackson didn't manage to work out how to change the code after he'd programmed it in. Not that Jim had felt it wise at the time to change it again straight afterwards like he did with Parker.

Once inside, he starts checking the inventory, working his way through serial numbers and quantities. To his relief, other than being returned to the racks in nothing remotely resembling their proper order, none of the sonics are missing - be they pistols or rifles. The only weapons currently absent are the ones that were taken out by the expedition. Getting the weaponry back in order again will be a pain in the ass - but at least he isn't going to have to have that amnesty that he was worried about. While they'd had their hands on the guns for a while, at least they'd been putting them back every night - presumably Jackson didn't trust them any more than Parker did before him.

Somewhere in the distance, he can hear the faint drone of the field siren, and sighs with relief. At last - he can get his security teams back. They'll be pretty relieved, as well - the protection of the colony is completely drummed into them, so he knows that, no matter how tired they are, when he asks for a show of hands to man the gates as soon as people can get changed, he won't be short of volunteers.

Emerging from the armoury, and locking it up with another new code - just in case - Jim makes his way back to the marketplace, though it's far too soon for anyone to have got back from the fields.

"There you are, Shannon. I thought you wanted to a word?" Boylan is leaning nonchalantly against the wall of the Command Centre.

"Yeah - sorry; I realised I wanted to make sure there weren't any guns in the wrong hands. Jackson's pals have put me back in charge."

"Damn." Boylan grins, "So much for an outbreak of an anarchy. I guess I'm not getting my hands on a sonic pistol anytime soon."

"Hell no." Jim chuckles, "So; what did you pick up while you were the spy in the ranks? The more we know, the fairer we can be when it comes to dishing out the justice." He indicates that they should go upstairs.

Once he's sitting at the desk, Boylan looks irked, "I didn't get as much as I would've liked - must be losing my touch - but Jackson's definitely your man over Parker's death. I heard him rowing with Drummond about it. Drummond was freaking about being chucked out of the Colony - but Jackson threatened to do just that to him if he didn't shut up. So he did."

"Thought so." Jim sighs, "How interested were the others? If they got scared and didn't know how to back out of it, then at least they deserve that mitigation."

"Feeling magnanimous in victory, then?" Boylan smirks.

"Not really. Just thinking about how our reaction'll go down. They were talking about injustice and elites and all that crap - so we need to prove them wrong. I can't guarantee that Jackson won't be shown the door - but the rest of them'll be staying here. We need them too much to be throwing them out. But that's up to Taylor when he gets back."

"Which is when, precisely?"

"God knows." Jim gets up again and crosses to the window, where he can see some of the security staff are starting to assemble, "They went out with enough supplies to last about eight weeks - they've been gone nearly six; so it could be any time between now and two weeks away. Or longer if they ration their supplies."

"Plenty of time to clear up the mess, then."

"Yep." Jim sighs, "We haven't burned the place down - but God alone knows what the crop yields are gonna be like this fall. Until the teams report back from the fields, I don't know whether I'll be telling Taylor that everything's AOK, or that we'll be issuing ration books for the winter."

"Yeah; it's a toughie" Boylan agrees, "I'll go and see what the bar's looking like. Might as well give people a place to come and gripe at. Never know what you'll overhear when people are jabbering in a bar."

"Anything you can get'll go down well." Jim agrees, "Much as I hate to say it - thanks for all you've done while this has been happening. There's no way we'd be where we are if you hadn't been doing that whole self-interested spy thing."

"And that's any different from usual?"

Jim laughs as Boylan departs, then follows him down to the marketplace where the former security teams have all gathered, more than eager to get back to work that doesn't involve the tending of crops. It isn't, after all, what they signed up for. Even having to go straight on shift is better than being out in the fields, and he's not surprised that everyone seems more than happy to do it.

Guzman steps over to join him, "I think everyone needs to get home to shower and change first, Mr Shannon."

"Sure." He concurs, "I'm not asking people to man the towers in cargo pants. I'm gonna need a couple of volunteers to go into the armoury and put all the weapons back in the right places. It looked like everything was back in - but until the guns are all on the right racks, I'm not taking anything for granted."

"On it."

Jim leaves Guzman to it - the man's more than capable of organising the troops without any interference on his part. Besides, he can see that Yseult has come back in from the fields, and he's keen to tell her that Jackson is well and truly locked up in the brig. She's also got Chris in tow, so he's got the opportunity to find out how much damage the locusts have done - and how much they've saved.

Beckoning, he invites them up to Taylor's office, "Okay, what's the damage?"

"Not as bad as it might've been." Chris looks very relieved, "Pretty much everyone was out there batting plastic about and that kept a lot of them off - but the really useful thing was our sonic protective system. We've been trying to make it work for months - but we were using the wrong frequencies. Max found the right one."

"Well, not exactly." Yseult admits, "I just remembered what Malcolm said about that dragonfly, so I started trying low frequencies instead of high ones. It looks like the dragonflies are major predators of the locusts - the moment they felt that signal, they started to lift. I think it just had them going into defensive mode - like starlings flocking in the evening - but it grabbed us enough time to get the cannons ready."

"Most of them took off - so we aren't overwhelmed with corpses." Chris adds, "It'll take a while to get them cleared - but I think that's the perfect job for the people who decided that they didn't have to do any work while we were so busy."

Jim snorts with amusement; something for Jackson's nervous cronies, and the various hangers on that acted as minders and - supposedly - guards. They'll love that - and so will everyone who had to watch them sitting pretty in the Command Centre while those who had more important things to be doing were expected to do their work instead.

"I'll have Guzman and Reilly organise them into work parties." He grins, "And then we can get started on getting things back to normal. I don't know about you," he continues, but I think I'm gonna go see my wife. You might wanna go fetch Erin, Max."

"God, yes."

"I'll help Guzman and Reilly with the work parties." Chris adds, cheerfully, "Go enjoy your mushy reunions, folks."

* * *

The heat of the sun is oppressive, and no one is emerging from the shade of the awnings; while Malcolm has put together a rota so that people don't hog the condenser that he's rigged into a cooling system. While he doesn't believe that most people would - the temptation to do so is very strong, and he doesn't really trust himself not to claim some sort of priority and pretty much camp beside it.

Most people are asleep - the only sensible thing to do under the circumstances - though Dunham and Carter are watching beyond the fencing, just in case. Malcolm would be drowsing, too - but not quite yet; not when he's got the inventory to check. It might be that he's being over-cautious, though the time he's spent out here has largely stemmed that stressed paranoia that punctuated the outward journey; but he's in charge of a lot of people, and the one thing that scares him now more than anything else is failing to get them all back alive.

He looks across to the small group of survivors, who are still keeping themselves to themselves somewhat. Janet is close to Diego - which merely confirms the existing suspicions that they were in a relationship before coming through the portal - and she's cuddling that toy dog that she was so desperate to retrieve from the ship. It so reminds him of Yseult and Schmidt that, for a moment, he completely fails to notice that Falker's not with them.

 _Oh hell. Not again_.

Irked, Malcolm starts looking about to see if he can spot the tiresome scientist. They've set up the solar cells again to keep trickle-charging the vehicle batteries and power the condensers that they're using for water rather than cooling. What's the betting that the idiot's gone back there to try and connect up that laptop? God, he's not going to get Dunham to confiscate it - he's going to take it off the fool and dump it somewhere in the desert once they're under way again. There's _nothing_ on that bloody thing that's going to make a blind bit of difference to their circumstances now, so it must be some sort of obsessive form of possessiveness. Either that, or this is his way of coping with the fact that he's never going to persuade anyone of anything now.

Setting his plex aside, he steps across to Dunham, "Falker's AWOL again."

"What?" Dunham looks up, and then all around, "Not again…"

"I'll check the solar farm." Malcolm sighs, "God, if he's messing about with that, then I swear I'm going to 'accidentally' lose that blasted computer of his on the way back."

"I can do that if you want, Doctor."

Rather than allow him to go alone, Dunham follows Malcolm round to the spot where they've set up the solar panels in the full sunlight to get the maximum power into their batteries and devices. Sure enough, Falker's there again, fumbling with some of the leads and clearly attempting to identify the connections. Why he's doing it, Malcolm can't even begin to guess; their cables are completely different to the ports on that laptop - the power transfer is also completely different given that the two devices are about a century apart in terms of technological advancement. A bit of research in the Eye, and he can fabricate a replacement - so why all this faffing about now?

"Can you please just stop doing that?" Malcolm's tone of voice is not one of appeal - more frustration, "We need that power to go to the batteries for the vehicles. It's bad enough getting stuck here - but it'll be deadly if that happens once we're back in the forests. We won't be able to get sufficient sunlight to the cells through the canopy - so it's now or not at all."

Falker seems quite indifferent to the overall safety of the expedition, "Once this is charged, I'll get out of your hair."

"Except you can't connect it up. I've told you - once we're back in the Colony, I can build something that should fit. I can't do it here - I don't have the parts or the tools."

He is rewarded for his offer with a vicious glare, "I want to do it _now_. Except for your obstruction. Jesus - I even get it here. What is it with you people, trying to suppress my work?"

"And how, precisely, am I doing that?" Malcolm demands, crossly, "I've offered to build you a new power cable once we get back - it's impossible to do it in the middle of a desert. Even if I had the right materials, I can't guarantee that it won't be contaminated with sand."

"Yeah, right." Falker reaches for another cable.

"Right. That's it." Angry now, Malcolm steps forward and grabs up the laptop, "I warned you what would happen if you didn't stop messing with our equipment. Whatever's on this laptop isn't going to run away, and we can't pollute an entire planet in a week." He turns and hands the computer to Dunham, only to see his expression change, and his hand suddenly dive for his pistol. He has no time to turn - and staggers as a heavy weight suddenly lands on his shoulders.

"Give that back to me, you bastard! That's theft!" A fist strikes over his shoulder, and then the flat of a hand delivers a stinging slap to his ear as Falker lashes out over the confiscation, " _GIVE IT BACK!_ "

For a moment, Malcolm forgets where he is, and it's Mike's weight pressing down on him. The heat of the desert becomes the heat of the furnace, and he's being pushed downwards…

Someone brushes past him, and the weight is gone. Shocked, Malcolm turns back to see Dunham has tackled Falker and pinned him down on the sand, "That's enough of that, Doctor." His voice is calm, but firm, "Stop fighting me or I'll have to stun you."

"You're all in on it!" Falker is raving now, almost spitting as he shouts, "I'm trying to save the world, damn you!"

"I'm sorry, Doctor." Dunham retrieves his pistol and stands back to deliver the shot. In an instant, the howling man is silent and still.

"Great." Malcolm mutters, "Now that's two people I might have to confine on the way back. There's only four more doses of distillate."

Dunham turns, dismayed, "Only four? I thought there were more?"

"I had Bram test them to see how they were holding up." Malcolm sighs, "Three of them had oxidised - and it turned them toxic, so we had to chuck them. Once they're finished, it's only a matter of time before we lose the Commander again - and I want to be out of the desert before that happens."

"I guess I'll have to rearrange the rhinos again."

"Looks like it."

Between them, they lug Falker back round to the camp, and deposit him with Janet and Diego. She looks equally shocked, "What happened?"

"We've had to stun him," Malcolm explains, "He tried to disconnect a battery from the solar farm - we need those batteries to get back. When we stopped him, he accused us of conspiring against him, and attacked me."

Rather than look surprised at such a revelation, she instead sighs, "Oh dear - I didn't realise he was thinking that. A lot of people didn't take any notice of his results, and he sometimes convinced himself that it was a conspiracy. It was just people burying their heads in the sand - but it was becoming a bit of a problem at the University. One of the reasons we were studying plankton in the ocean was just to get him away from the campus for a bit."

"I've told him he was right." Malcolm says, bemused, "It doesn't make any sense that he'd think I was conspiring against him to suppress his data."

"It might be stress." She volunteers, "He'd just got divorced, and his application for tenure got turned down because he wouldn't stop insisting that people accept his data without question."

"Did he submit any papers for peer review?"

She shakes her head, "I'll keep an eye on him."

"I'd be grateful if you could. I'm going to keep hold of the laptop for the time being. Once we get back to the tree-line, it's going to be a lot more dangerous. We're so far out that you haven't seen the local fauna yet. If nothing else convinces you how far back in time we are, then a buitreraptor should cut the mustard - though I'd prefer to get back to the compound before we encounter an acceraptor or carnotaurus."

She swallows, nervously, "I'll make sure he doesn't cause any more trouble."

Malcolm nods, "Thanks."

Hopefully she can do as promised - otherwise he really _is_ going to have to confine two people on the way back to the Colony. Hell - the sooner they're back there, the better.


	24. Last Stretch

**A/N:** Thank you again for your reviews - yes indeed, Jim is safely back in charge again, and the expedition is almost there. Just one more overnight stop for them - though it is hardly going to be free of incident (when are these things, after all?). I have left one little revelation unhinted at, but rest assured that we shall be coasting towards a full helping of gorgonzola, with a side of stinking bishop and a gooey drizzle of extra-ripe camembert - rest assured!

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Four

 _Last Stretch_

Taylor looks worried, "You think he's going to be a problem, Malcolm?"

"I hope not." Malcolm looks across to where Falker is still out cold, while Janet and Diego sit with him, both looking worried, "From what they've told me, he's become increasingly obsessed with the contents of his data - and the refusal of other academics to accept them. Apparently he never published any academic papers - which is rather essential if you're going to be taken seriously as a scientist - so it was pretty inevitable that people weren't going to listen to him."

"So he wrote books?"

Malcolm nods, "I've read them - but, having met him, I'm wondering if the editor who reissued them did some judicious editing after the fact. The books seem well argued and evidence-based; but the way Falker's behaving doesn't tally with that at all."

Taylor frowns, "So he's a nut?"

"I wouldn't go quite that far - but close. I get the feeling that his work was far more wildly put, and probably a lot heavier on conjecture. Until I see his results, though, I can't be sure."

"Which you can't because his computer won't work."

"Exactly - though his obsessive determination to get at it, and his conviction that I'm in on some sort of conspiracy against him because I can't magically produce a power cable for something so obsolete that no one's used one like it for a century makes me wonder exactly what I'm going to see once I _do_ manage to do it."

"And you can?"

"With a bit of research, yes - I think I can fabricate something that'll do the trick; though I'm beginning to think it might be better for all of us if I left the blasted thing here when we go."

"I wouldn't. If he's that nuts, he'll try and go back to get it."

"I know. That's why I'm not going to do it - though it's going to be locked up and hidden away for the rest of the trip. If he's too busy trying to find it, then perhaps he'll leave the solar farm alone. I can fit it behind the service panel in my rover; it's flush with the rest of the bodywork, so he's not likely to notice it."

Taylor smirks, "Reminds me of the times I'd check those panels for contraband from the security teams. I didn't realise you'd found it as well."

"And you wouldn't believe me if I told you I've never used it for anything before, would you?"

"Nope."

It's a simple matter to unfasten the panel with the appropriate key, and - as Malcolm had hoped - there's plenty of room to conceal the laptop, despite its bulky size. No wonder people use it for contraband - but then, what use is a service panel if it's too small to work in?

By the time he's concealed the computer, Falker's woken up; and his strident tones can be heard right across the camp, "As soon as we reach civilisation, I'm having that bastard arrested! He's stolen my laptop, dammit!"

Reynolds is standing over the man as Malcolm emerges from behind the vehicles, "If you want to make a complaint, then talk to the mission leader."

"Which is?"

"Doctor Wallace."

Falker tries to get up, only for both Janet and Diego to grasp his arms and stop him, "Bryce - stop it. They're helping us - and you're making it very difficult for them. Malcolm's already promised he's going to build you a power cable when we get to where we're going."

"So he can steal my results! I know what he's trying to do!"

Reynolds looks back at Malcolm with a bemused expression, while, behind him, Janet looks deeply uncomfortable, "Why would he do that? He said that you were right - so why would he want to take your results? He believes you!"

"He's just saying that so he can steal my data!"

What the hell's wrong with the man? He seemed perfectly fine when they got him out of the ship - so why's he behaving like a complete arse now? Either he was in shock then, or he's in shock now: it's impossible to know. Perhaps the reality of being 85 million years in the past has begun to sink in, and he can't handle it.

The noise has attracted Mira, who comes to join Malcolm, "Boy, when you make enemies, you don't do it by halves, do you?"

"And this time, I did it without even trying."

"Sun's starting to move over. Time to get going."

"Right. I'll get Dunham to work on marshalling the troops. Such troops as we have."

They're right out in the middle of the desert now, the great mountains and rocky outcrops left in their wake. Such is the monotony of the journey, that each day seems to blend into another, and it's remarkably difficult to keep track of how many times they've stopped, and how many days have passed. It was much the same on the way out - the only stops that remain in the memory are those where things happened - like that ghastly moment when Wicks disappeared in the night, courtesy of those damned bambiraptors. The vista is almost featureless, and the only reason they're staying true is because of Mira and her sextant. Malcolm knows full well that, had he been navigating, they'd probably be going around in circles by now.

The shadows are lengthening as they head out; the heat of the day shimmering back up towards the sky that hammered it down while they were resting under the awnings.

"I'm really sorry about Bryce," Janet says again, seated in the rear passenger seat behind them, "He's never been this bad before. He had his moments - particularly after his application for tenure got turned down - but we thought he was getting over it. We'd just had funding through to do the plankton measurements; it was one of the elements of our study of climate change; and we'd persuaded him that it was a good thing - that people were finally starting to take him seriously."

"As far as I knew, people were already studying the effects of climate change on phytoplankton." Malcolm observes as he guides the vehicle over a dune, "There were plenty of papers in a number of journals at the time that I remember reading."

"Bryce liked to believe that there was more to it than that, Malcolm." Janet sighs, "That he was the only one who knew how bad things really were. He refused to accept that the papers were independently produced. Every time someone published - even if it was someone on the other side of the world, he'd insist that they'd spied on his results."

"I hate to say it," Mira says, "But it sounds to me like they were absolutely right to deny him tenure. The more I hear, the more convinced I am that he's a seriously dangerous man. If he's not watched, he could end up killing the lot of us. I get the feeling that the only reason his true colours weren't revealed in his own time was because he was dumped here and they're coming out now."

"He never used to be like this." Janet says, very quietly, "I remember when I first attended his classes, he was brilliant - but for some reason he got fixated on the climate change thing. He wasn't the only one studying it - not by any stretch - but he got fixated on this belief that he was the only one who could see how bad it was, and no one else could stop it but him."

"It happens that way sometimes." Malcolm sighs, "Did this happen before, during, or after the divorce? Maybe that was the trigger."

"That was what I thought. The two were pretty much concurrent. He was so driven - so bright. I think he forgot about his marriage - and eventually his wife couldn't deal with it anymore. It got pretty messy. He really started to get obsessed after that - as though she didn't believe him, and he was on this crazy mission to prove she was wrong." She pauses again, "We really thought he was getting over it."

"Maybe we can sort him out once we get back to the Colony." Mira suggests.

"I hope so."

Sitting beside Mira, Malcolm can see she's sceptical; and, to be frank, so is he.

* * *

After another two days of tedium, the convoy crests another dune, and Mira nods, "Here we are. The ex-Phoenix encampment."

"Finally." Malcolm looks very relieved, "I was beginning to wonder if the continent had turned around. I hated that sense of getting nowhere." Bizarrely, he looks at the region where he endured some of the most miserable experiences of his life with gratitude - for, much as it was a horrible time, at least he knows now that they're a day or so away from the treeline, and home seems almost tangibly close.

The sun is getting high again, and he calls another halt. Now that they're closer to the scrublands, there are more signs of life - and a number of buitreraptors have been seen fleeing from the convoy, a sight that has astounded Janet, sitting behind Malcolm and Mira.

"We're really in the Cretaceous," she says, softly, "I couldn't believe it - but now…"

"They might look cute," Mira warns, "but if they're here, then their predator won't be too far away. We're back in bambiraptor country - and they're a hell of a lot bigger. They're the real reason why we put the fence line up when we stop."

Neither of them need to look behind them to know that she's shuddered.

The precautions they take now are far, far stricter than they were when they were further out. Now that they're back in territory that can more easily sustain life, the need to protect themselves has equally increased, and the guards are much more focused again - and their weapons are no longer on stun.

Paula is looking worried as they set up the camp, "We've got a problem, Malcolm." She whispers, "The last of the distillate's been used up - from now on, it's a matter of time before we start to lose the Commander again."

"I knew it was coming - but now that it's here…" Malcolm looks distinctly nervous. The last time that Commander Taylor was so detached from himself, he nearly got throttled, "What do you suggest?"

"Well - he knows that he's on borrowed time before he starts to revert back into that confused state; so at least we're all prepared now. The trouble is, once he starts to go, he's going to lose that awareness, so you need to be prepared to deal with him refusing to accept your authority. I've still got some sedative left - but I really need that for Mateo; he's not reacting very well to the fracture compound, so he's in a lot more pain than Mira. We may have to agree with the commander that he should be cuffed in a rhino again."

"In that case, let's go and talk to him."

Most of the tents are up, and Taylor is seated in the shade of one of the awnings extending from the rhinos. From his expression, they both know that they're right to do it now.

"So that's it, then." He sighs, as he sees them, "One way trip back to gaga-land."

"We don't know for sure, Commander." Paula says, "It may be that there'll be a residual effect that'll keep you with us until we get back to the Colony. It's just another couple of days now."

He shrugs, "Not worth the risk, Paula. How do we stand with sedatives?"

She shakes her head, "I need them for Mateo."

"In that case, have Dunham put a sonic on stun and have him on standby. Once this kicks in, I have no doubt that I'll try to take charge again - and I can't afford to do that. Not when we're so close to home."

"I'm not sure, Commander - being stunned too frequently can have a detrimental effect on you overall physiology."

"Better that than killing someone - or everyone."

"As you wish." She sighs, "Doctor Wallace?"

Malcolm nods, "I'll go fetch him."

Taylor sits back and watches as Malcolm heads off in search Dunham, and Paula returns to the corner where the strangers are resting. He shakes his head slightly, and wonders where they came from, "Passengers."

"Looks like it." Washington smiles, sitting alongside him, "No one ever said the Badlands weren't mysterious."

"You're in my head." He says, quietly, "You're not really here."

"You haven't let me go." She answers.

"What do you expect? I never got the chance to say goodbye. How am I supposed to now?"

She shrugs, "That's up to you. I'll stay as long as you want me to. What are the rosters looking like?"

That moment of clarity is gone, and he sighs, "In need of your firm hand, Wash. Dunham's capable - but he's still got a lot to learn."

"Leave it to me." She pauses, "Shouldn't we be moving on?"

"Took the words right out of my mouth." He grins, rising to his feet, "I'll get people moving."

Malcolm is talking to Dunham as he approaches them, "Time to get moving, I think."

"Commander?" Dunham looks startled, and then turns to Malcolm with a look of concern. Malcolm, too, looks very dismayed, "It's too early to go yet, Commander, the sun's too high. Mira…"

"Mira?" Taylor's tone is suddenly dangerous, "You've put _her_ in charge?"

"She's the best expert we have in survival techniques, Commander. She's got us back out of the Badlands alive - the fact that we're back on familiar territory means that we can manage ourselves now." His tone is placating, but he still looks as though he thinks that the Commander is a bomb on the verge of detonating, "With the sun like it is, we need to wait until the worst of the heat's dissipated before we move on."

His voice is too reasonable for arguments, so Taylor nods, curtly, "Fair enough. We move on in an hour."

Dunham and Malcolm exchange a nervous glance as he turns on his heel and returns to his seat. Surreptitiously, he flicks his sonic to stun, "Do we wait until he attacks someone, or do I do it now?"

"I really don't know." Malcolm sighs, "Thank God we're nearly home."

* * *

It's been nearly a week since the sudden restoration of proper order in the Colony, and most of the damage seems to have been repaired. At least no one used bombs this time around; so when Taylor gets back, it won't look as bad as it might've. Looking out of the main doors of the Infirmary, Elisabeth is surprised to see Yseult approaching, and looking a little pale.

"What's wrong?" After everything that's happened, she can't help but wonder if Yseult has had some sort of anxiety attack. Now that Jackson's no longer a threat to her, the close shave she experienced when he used Erin as blackmail against her is bound to have had some sort of repercussions. Elisabeth Rose is just the same with Maddy - very clingy, nervous and anxious when away from her mum. Sharon's been struggling with the fallout with most of the little ones.

"Sorry." Yseult sighs, "I think I'm going down with something - I was sick this morning, and I still feel pretty rubbish. I'm supposed to be meeting with my team this morning to touch base on what happened while I was under house arrest - I can't do that in the throes of a bug. I was hoping you could prescribe me an anti-emetic or something - I really can't put this off any longer."

"Come in." Elisabeth says, smiling at her, "You've had a hell of a lot of stress over the last few weeks, so I'm not surprised you've picked something up. That sort of thing plays havoc with your immune system."

"Thanks." Yseult follows her inside, then stops, and forces herself to swallow, hard, "Sorry…"

Without hesitation, Elisabeth grabs a receptacle, and holds it for her friend as she retches, "It's not fun, is it?" she sympathises, "Once this has subsided, I'll get you a mouth-rinse and something to calm your insides down, okay? It's just a temporary measure, mind. If your body wants to get bugs out of the system, then you should really let it."

Taking deep breaths, Yseult sits in a proffered chair, "I know - I just want to get through this morning. If I have to spend the rest of the day with my head over the loo, then so be it."

"If you're okay with it, I'll just do a quick blood scan so we know what bug it is, and then I can decide whether it's worth fighting."

"Fair enough." Sitting back in the chair and accepting a glass of mouth-rinse with relief, Yseult holds out her arm, and sits as Elisabeth runs the scan.

"Ah."

"What? God, it's some mutant norovirus, isn't it?"

"There's no antibodies in your system at all other than the ones I'd expect to see. There's something else, though: Human Chorionic Gonadotropin, in significant quantities."

"And that means what?"

"It means that you haven't got a bug - but you have got a bun. In the oven."

Yseult stares at her, "I'm pregnant?"

Elisabeth nods, "About six weeks along or so - just like last time you started showing sicky symptoms."

"I'm pregnant…" she repeats, "Malcolm'll be astounded."

"I think the pregnancy is probably about as old as the expedition, Max."

Yseult reddens, "I suppose you could call that the result of my husband's golden goodbye."

Elisabeth laughs at her embarrassment, "It's great news - congratulations."

"Thanks - I can't quite believe it. Erin's going to have a sibling."

"Yes, she is."

* * *

Jim sighs as he stands at the door of the brig. The guys who've been looking after the occupant are reporting that Jackson's been nothing but complaints and whingeing from the moment they took up their posts. Mostly it's about being locked up for 'doing nothing', the standard of the accommodation and demands to see someone 'more important'.

The rest of his crew have been confined to their homes and are under guard to make damn sure that they don't try and make up a story together that'll get them off whatever hook they think they're on. Once Taylor's back and interviewing them, the important thing is that they tell it like it was, not how they hope will minimise the consequences. His only contact with them since that time has to oversee the provision of supplies to their homes and making sure that their families are inconvenienced as little as possible. Other than a couple of the kids using the situation as an excuse to bully their peers, they're innocent.

Most of the last week has been spent wandering back to the gates rather too often, in the hopes that the expedition will hove into view sometime soon. It's a bit pointless to do it - but he can't help it. After what's happened, the sooner they get Taylor back - and under Elisabeth's care - the better.

Right. That's it - he's run out of excuses not to unlock the door and go in. Jackson's hardly likely to speak to him either - but he's demanding to speak to the person in charge and, until Taylor's back, it's Jim or no one.

"Oh. Finally." Jackson spits as soon as he's inside, "Wondered when you were going to show up."

Jim shrugs, "Got more important things to do." He says, affecting an air of disinterest, "Like clearing up the crap-holes you left."

"Yeah, right. How am I to blame? That little bitch poisoned me!"

"Considering what you were going to do to her, I don't blame her one bit." Jim snorts, "It doesn't matter that you were flat out on the deck. You and your guys left the colony unprotected against something that could've destroyed us in a single day. Did you think that the pest control teams spend their days sitting on their asses playing games on their computers? Because you had them out in the fields, they weren't monitoring their systems and it took nearly an hour to get them back to their posts and priming the countermeasures. If we hadn't taken charge, then we'd have no food next year."

Jackson shrugs, "And you think Taylor would've done better."

"No. Not _think_ ; _know_. He would've had people at their posts, working like they were s'posed to, and they'd've known the locusts were coming _before_ they turned up. Do you _still_ think this place runs itself?"

"It was doing fine once I took over. Everyone was pulling their weight."

"Except you. You were no better than Parker."

That seems to prick a nerve, "Parker was a joke! He didn't have a damn clue how to run this place!"

"And you knew that, didn't you?" He isn't likely to tempt out an unguarded comment, but it's worth a try, "He could talk the talk, but not walk the walk. The perfect patsy."

Jackson glares at him.

"I've spoken to your cronies." Jim says, calmly, opting not to add that his conversations have largely consisted of making sure that they knew they weren't allowed to speak to one another in any capacity. And not much else.

"What have they said?"

"Lots." Jim smiles. Again, he doesn't reveal that their responses have been equal complaints and attempts to justify their activities.

"What about?" Immediately, Jackson is nervous.

"Oh; this and that."

"They're all liars, dammit! All of them - you'd better not believe what they tell you about anything!"

"Really?" Jim looks intrigued, "What reason would they have to lie to me? They did things they shouldn't and now they're having to face the consequences. Just like you."

"And I get to sit here while they shift the blame!" Jackson snaps.

"Well, I wouldn't put it like _that_. Most of it's pretty mundane stuff, really." Jim continues. Politics may not be his forte, but this is what he's good at. A criminal suspect. An interrogation in search of justice - yes, this is where his skills really lie. Bluffing about how much he knows is one of his favourite techniques: guilty people always think you know more than you really do.

"All we did was push you out of your privileged position, Shannon! What do you know about running this place? That's hardly a crime is it?"

"I take it you've forgotten about the assaults, sexual harassment and murder, then?" Jim asks, blandly, "That's what the Commander'll be looking into when he's back. It won't be long now - they're due back any day."

"Screw you! I'm not taking the fall for that! Parker was a liability - he wouldn't share, and he wouldn't do anything! He was supposed to step down and he didn't!"

"So you killed him."

"So would you if you had the chance, damn you!"

"Probably not." Jim says, still very calm, "But then, I'm not you. I'll think over what you've said while I'm preparing my report for the Commander. He'll be in to see you as soon as he returns."

It's not a confession _per se_ , but it's pretty damn close. While he can't prove it, Jim's belief that Jackson killed Parker moves from near certainty to absolute certainty. Once they've spoken to the lot of them, that should do the rest.

As long, of course, as Taylor's fit to do it.

* * *

For the first time, Malcolm is relieved to see outpost eight. While it'll always be the place where everything went wrong with Rob Stanley, today it's a good thing to see, as they're really on the home stretch now. Besides, it'll be the first stop since they left the forests where they'll have solid walls between themselves and the dinosaurs.

Taylor has been morose and silent behind the wheel of his rover since yesterday. He's definitely going back into that delusional state, as Mira's seen him talking to someone invisible again, so they're convinced that Washington is back in the party - in Taylor's mind, at least. He's consented to allow Malcolm to take the lead, as the route to this outpost is one he's taken more regularly, and thus he knows the way better. All that matters now is that, once they leave here, they've got about nine hours or so left, and they'll be home.

Speaking of which.

Everyone's getting settled, and Travers is on cooking duties, making what use he can of the tinned goods they retrieved from the hold of the _Madre de Dios_. Taylor is in his quarters, presumably having conversations with the late Lieutenant, while Mira is getting some well-earned rest in a bunk on the other side of the living quarters.

"Outpost eight to Terra Nova. Come in."

It takes a moment, but there's a response: _Malcolm - is that you? It's Jim_.

"It's good to hear from you, Jim. We're about one more day out - I just wanted to touch base to let you know so you can advise Elisabeth to be ready to see the Commander."

 _Is it bad_?

"Not as bad as it might be. We found a natural compound out in the desert that arrested and suppressed the symptoms. The trouble is, it's run out, and he's deteriorated again. He won't like it when we get back and Elisabeth's waiting for him."

 _He doesn't have to like it. What else did you find?_

"I'll put in a full report when we're back - but the short version is: we found what happened to the ship that had the figurehead on it, we found the portal, we saw it open, and we saw something come through. Plus, we've got four survivors."

 _Survivors? God - that's going to be a counselling job for the ages. I'll let Elisabeth know. Any injuries?_

"A couple of broken bones. Mira's responding well to the fracture compound, but one of the new arrivals isn't - so we'll need to get him seen to as soon as he's back in."

 _I'll warn her._

He can't help himself, "How's Max? Is she anywhere around?"

 _Sorry Malcolm, she's at home and probably in bed. I'm the one on call. She's fine, though. Looking forward to having you home, that's for sure. I'll let her know you're all due back tomorrow night_.

"Thanks. Send her my love, won't you?"

 _Urgh._

Malcolm laughs, "I'll sign off and turn in. We're back in comm range now, so any problems, I'll let you know."

 _Sounds good. Terra Nova out._

Still chuckling, Malcolm sits back.

"Who was that?"

He turns, startled, to see Falker nearby, looking very edgy. Great - who lost track of him?

"The Commander of the colony that we're returning to, Doctor. I'm letting him know we'll be back tomorrow."

"Don't give me that - you're planning to steal my data and destroy it - just like everyone else."

"I haven't seen your data - I don't know what it looks like, so I'm hardly going to destroy it, am I? Besides, until we can rig up a power cable for your laptop, we can't see it anyway. I can't do that until we get to the colony."

"I want my laptop. Where is it?" His eyes hard, Falker takes a step forward, his hands clenching and unclenching into fists and back.

"In a safe place." That's been the stock answer for the last three days. Most people don't know that it's behind that service panel in Malcolm's rover, "Believe me, it's safe. I'll give it back to you when we're back in the Colony and I've worked out how to power it. Then you can do whatever the hell you like with your data. There's no one who's going to steal it from you - it's pretty much useless here so no one would."

And he's done it again. Said something that's triggered an explosion.

"It's not useless!" Furious, Falker is now fumbling with the pocket on his borrowed cargo pants, and Malcolm stares in disbelief as he pulls out a small ballistic pistol. God above, where the hell did he get that? Was it in his pocket when they came through the portal? "I got this after people started rubbishing my results, so they couldn't steal my data from my apartment. Wherever that laptop is, you get it. You get it _now_."

Holding up his hands, Malcolm shakes his head, "It's too dangerous go to out there at night. The forest's full of predators - there could be anything out there - and even a sonic at full pelt won't bring them down. Once we get to the colony, you'll have the laptop, and a power cable to power it, and you can do whatever you like with the sodding data. Put that gun down - we can resolve this without weapons."

"No. I want it _now_. You're going to get it for me. Move."

He should be afraid - but, for some reason, he's not. There are plenty of people here, and Dunham's probably still at the doorway; being as dedicated as he is, he offered to keep tabs until everyone was inside. Rather than argue, he turns and allows Falker to follow him out of the lab towards the door. At least this time he's not alone - that was the worst of it when Stanley was hunting him.

Sure enough, Dunham is still at the door, and immediately recognises the situation, "Doctor?"

"Is the cage closed?"

Dunham nods, "I'm pretty sure I saw something moving around out there - but I couldn't tell what it was. Might be an ovosaur, but it could be a slasher."

"As long as the cage is locked, we'll be okay if it's a slasher."

"Slasher?" Falker asks, then snorts, "Quit making stuff up."

Dunham looks as though he's going to object, but Malcolm quickly shakes his head, and he holds his tongue; allowing Malcolm to open the door, and following at Falker's prompt.

It never ceases to amaze Malcolm how noisy the forest can be at night. Creatures are calling to one another - contact calls, food calls, alarm calls…and something's definitely lurking beyond the vehicles that are parked outside the cage. He can hear it moving in the bushes. If it's an ovosaur, then chances are they can scare it off. But, if it's an acceraptor…

"Don't risk it, Doctor." He turns to Falker, "If that's an acceraptor, then stepping outside that door's a death sentence. It won't run away, it won't be injured by a handgun and it'll tear you to pieces. There's no way I'm going beyond this cage."

"Then tell me where my laptop is. I'll get it if you're too chicken to go."

"I'm not telling you." Malcolm says, firmly, "It's for your own safety."

"Fine." He turns, "Then I'll shoot blondie here."

It's clear that he means it, though Dunham remains absolutely impassive in the face of a gun at his head, "Don't let him, Doctor. He'll kill himself and the pair of us if that slasher gets in here."

"Not if it's an ovosaur." Malcolm looks very nervous. Given his ability to inflame situations by saying the wrong thing, he is keen to at least keep two of them alive if he can't manage three.

"I don't give a shit what it is!" Falker snaps, "Give me what I want, or I shoot him right in front of you!"

It's ridiculous; what else can he do? With no alternative, Malcolm extracts a tool from his pocket, "Fine. If that's what you want, then have this. It's the tool you'll need to open the service panel. You'll find it just behind the cab on my rover. It's been slotted in there."

He holds it out, and Falker snatches it from him. "Last chance, Doctor. If you go out there, and it's an acceraptor, then you won't come back in."

"And you're making up crap to keep me from getting my data back. I'm going to get it." Pocketing the gun, Falker wrenches open the door to the cage, and makes his way to Malcolm's rover. Without hesitation, Dunham shuts the gate again so that whatever's out there doesn't get in with them.

"It might be an ovosaur." He says, quietly, "But I don't think it is. If it's still here, then it's going to go for the easy meal."

"I know." Malcolm says, sadly.

"You can't say you didn't warn him, Doctor. If that's an acceraptor, then he's the one who insisted on going out there."

They watch, nervously, as Falker examines the side of Malcolm's rover, and starts to fiddle with the tool, attempting to fit it into the small slot that will loose the catch. He's not making a very good job of it, trembling in his apparent excitement at recovering the laptop and cursing as he misses.

"Listen." Dunham whispers, "Something's moving in the trees."

"Please God let it be an ovosaur." Malcolm whispers back.

It isn't.

No one is ever truly prepared for the sheer size of an acceraptor if they've never seen one. Both of the men inside the cage are well aware of what to expect as a head emerges from the bush, that telltale dome of bone that runs the length of its face. There's no real defensive strategy with a slasher beyond large weapons, large amounts of fire and even larger amounts of luck. Only solid walls are truly protective - and Falker hasn't got any way to get anywhere near those unless he gets back to the cage. Now.

"Falker!" Malcolm doesn't dare raise his voice too high, as the creature's hearing is acute. It's only the interference of the noise of nearby creatures letting off alarm calls in all directions that prompts him to try, "Get back in here - it's an acceraptor! It'll kill you if you don't get in here right now!"

Falker's only move is to continue trying to prise off that damn panel.

"I'll get him." Already, Dunham is making to open the gate of the cage.

"Don't. It'll just kill you as well." Malcolm whispers back, "It's not noticed him yet. If we keep still and quiet, it may be distracted by the alarm calls."

For a moment, it looks like that strategy might pay off, as the hideous creature emerges from the brush and looks set to make its way down the pathway that they used to get here from the Badlands. More alarm calls are sounding from within the forests, and the monstrous biped seems likely to follow that sound.

But then Falker finally gets the panel off.

That clatter, and the triumphant little "Yes!" that accompanies it instantly captures the creature's attention - and what follows is a forgone conclusion. There's nothing either Malcolm or Dunham can do but watch as the acceraptor's great head rounds the front of the rover, and suddenly Falker is face to face with a very large number of teeth.

Regardless of the fact that he's being vindicated - literally - Malcolm is not a cruel man, and he can't watch as the dinosaur takes full advantage of the easy meal right in front of it. Even Dunham has turned away, though neither of them are able to fully block out the horrible screams.

By the time they can look again, there's no sign of the scientist; only a bloody trail off into the bush that is just picked out by the lights from the cage. The panel, and the unlocking tool, are on the floor, and Malcolm can see the edge of the laptop still where he hid it.

"There was nothing you could've done, Doctor." Dunham says, quietly, as Malcolm slams his fist into the cage in sheer frustration.

"Idiot! There was _nothing_ on that sodding laptop that was worth dying for! Why the hell couldn't he wait?"

"I guess we'll never know." The soldier turns, "Come on, Doctor. There's nothing we can do out here. We might as well get back inside."

Miserable, Malcolm nods and allows his head of security to usher him back inside. All he wants right now is to hold Yseult and have a good, old fashioned blub into her shoulder. Thank God they'll be home tomorrow.


	25. Cure

**A/N:** Thanks for the reviews, ladies! The expedition finally home; but how much of the Commander is left to save? Read on to find out...

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Five

 _Cure_

Mira's expression over the breakfast table is grim, but not accusatory, as Malcolm tells her of the previous evening's events.

"All for a laptop." She says, after a while, "What a complete idiot."

Janet is very upset, "I don't understand. I didn't know he had a gun; I don't know why he'd do this. I'm really sorry."

"It wasn't your fault, Janet." Mira reminds her, "You're not responsible for his behaviour - you're his student, not his carer."

She sighs, "It was starting to feel like it recently. The number of times I had to apologise to people, or get him to leave places when he got too riled up; it was becoming embarrassing - but I didn't realised it had got so bad that he'd got a gun."

"I think this was the first time he felt pushed to use it." Malcolm sighs, "We were getting close to the end of the journey, and I suppose he thought that it was his last chance to get his data back, because we'd be in my labs and I could really steal it from him."

"What will you do with it now?" Janet asks.

"What I always intended to do." Malcolm answers, "Find a way to power up the laptop and see what data he'd accumulated. His behaviour wasn't in keeping with the content of the books I was reading, and I'm becoming even more convinced that whoever reissued the books might not have used the entirety of his original data at all - but revised it using already known information, so his predictions looked more prescient than they actually were."

"I promise he wasn't a charlatan - he really was a brilliant scientist."

"I don't doubt it. The language he used when I was first speaking to him convinced me of that; it's just that his personality was pretty obsessive, and he latched onto something to such an extent that it became the centre of his existence, to the exclusion of all else. I have a tendency to go that way myself." He admits, "I've lived most of my life in one sort of laboratory or another, and it made me a very unpleasant person to be around. I was lucky - I came here, and that change of world made all the difference for me. If he'd been a bit less fixed on that laptop, he might've benefited from it, too."

Mira snorts, "Not even meeting someone like Max would've changed him. He was too far gone." She looks up at Malcolm then, "I imagine you're looking forward to tonight."

"God, yes." He looks around, "Mark's gone outside to check that there's nothing untoward around the vehicles, so we might as well load up and get started. Once the Commander turns up."

"No sign of him?"

Malcolm shakes his head, "Not as yet."

"I don't believe for a moment that he's still in his quarters. I'm wondering if he's trying to take charge outside."

"I suppose the best idea would be to go and check. I'll do it." Malcolm rises from the table, "He's back in the 'I don't trust the sixers' zone."

He is not surprised to find that the quarters assigned to the Commander are empty, and makes his way back to the exit to find that Reynolds is in the process of persuading Taylor not to depart alone.

"Dammit, no one else is ready, Reynolds. What is it with Dunham? Why aren't we on the move?"

"It's only six in the morning, Sir. We agreed to depart at seven, remember?"

"Is there a problem, Commander?" He might as well play the 'ignorant' card. He knows that Taylor's awareness of his condition has disappeared as it's reasserted itself.

He turns, looks like he's about to say something he shouldn't, but then changes his mind, "No, Malcolm. I seem to have an unsynchronised watch." He sounds most loath to admit such an oversight.

"We're rounding people up now." Malcolm advises, faking a cheerful smile, "Believe me, I'm as eager to get home as you are."

To his relief, Taylor smiles, "Max. Of course you are; she's a good woman - I don't blame you."

"Leave it to us, Commander. I'll finish up with my rover, and we should be able to get moving in half an hour or so."

"Good." Taylor is now smiling broadly, "Always knew you were a good man, Malcolm."

He watches as the Commander returns inside, "That's the other reason I'm eager to get home."

Reynolds comes to stand beside him, "Me too, Doctor."

* * *

Yseult is sipping at some ginger tea and nibbling at some dry biscuits, already fed up with the whole concept of 'morning' sickness. It's not constant, but it's still tiresome, and can strike her at pretty much any time of the day. While she's excited at the thought of telling Malcolm that he's going to be a father again, another side of her is wanting to snuggle up in his arms and cry because she hates the whole concept of being sick.

Erin doesn't get it, of course; she's far too young to understand that Mummy's having another baby. Other than the annoyance of her mother having to abandon her at ridiculously short notice, she's just getting on with her day as usual, and is setting aside that clinginess that followed her forcible removal to the nursery a week or so ago.

There's a knock at the door, and she has a brief moment of nerves before reminding herself that Jackson's still in the brig. Taking her tea with her, she crosses to open it, "Jim! Hi - what brings you over?"

"Good news, Max. We had a call in from Outpost eight last night. Everyone's favourite Chief Science Officer."

"Malcolm?"

"You mean there's another one?" Jim is grinning at her now, "They'll be back tonight."

"And the Commander?"

"They managed to put his sickness on hold while they were away - but whatever they used ran out, so he's out of it again. But he hasn't deteriorated as much as we thought he might, so we can get him to Elisabeth and hopefully she can treat it."

Yseult's face falls, "I hope we can stop this deterioration. The last thing we need after everything we've been through is to lose the Commander before we've worked out how things are going to pan out in the future. I'd want those plans to have his endorsement."

"Me too. I guess we'll see what it's like when he's back." He pauses, as Yseult straightens, and looks dismayed, "What?"

"Sorry - have to run." She hastily shuts the door and he can hear her retreating footsteps at hurried pace.

"Ah." He says, to himself, and turns to make his way back to the Command Centre.

Elisabeth is waiting for him when he enters Taylor's office, "Right." She is all business, of course, "I've assembled all the treatments I can think of for leptospirosis, plus some neuro-stimulating medication to see if we can help his brain build new neural pathways. Given his age, we'll need to give him all the help we can with that."

Jim nods, and sits down, "And what if we can't get him back?"

"I don't know." Elisabeth sighs, taking a seat herself, "If we can't cure this, then perhaps we could use whatever treatment they came up with in the desert. If I know Malcolm, he'll have a full breakdown of the chemical compounds, so we should be able to synthesise it here. I don't imagine it's going to completely arrest the deterioration, but if it slows it down, then at least we can sort out what's going to happen once we do lose him permanently."

"That'll be hard."

"Yes - but when has the Commander ever backed down from a distasteful decision? He's an extraordinarily courageous man, and I think he'd do what was best for the colony without hesitation as he always has; even though it means accepting that he can't lead it anymore."

"And who'll take his place?" Jim asks, mostly rhetorically. It's the ultimate unanswerable question.

"That's something we'll have to deal with when the time comes, Jim." Elisabeth says, reaching across and taking his hand, "We cut ourselves off from the future, so there's no one coming with the Commander's military skills. Guzman can look after that part of the colony - but when it comes to overall leadership? That's something else entirely."

"I don't want to do it." Jim admits, "I'm no politician - I'm just a cop."

"I'm thinking more along the lines of a council, Jim." Elisabeth says, "We need to start electing people, don't we? Even though there are only a thousand of us, we can't live under the command of a single man anymore. It was always going to come to this moment - and now it has. So we deal with it. Taylor would expect nothing less."

"Only if we can cure his problem. Not to mention what we do with Jackson and his bunch - Jackson's convinced that I don't have the authority to try him for any crimes - but if Taylor can't do it, then what do we do?"

"Another bridge we'll have to cross if we come to it." She stands up again, "Come on, Jim. I've got Josh and Skye coming over for dinner tonight, as well as Maddy. The expedition probably won't get here before nightfall, so let's just have a family dinner and look forward to seeing Mark home again, shall we?"

"Fair enough."

There's another knock upon Yseult's door, and she wanders across to find Pete outside, "Hey sugar. Word on the street is that your hubby's due back tonight. Fancy having a cleaning up fairy in? Well, a fairy."

She smiles, tiredly, "That would be great, Pete. I've tried to do a bit of tidying, but it just sets off the nausea again. Malcolm sorted that out for me last time. The only thing he couldn't do was cook - not without poisoning us both."

"I'll get Louis onto that." He grins at her, as she sits down on the sofa again, "How are you doing - after what happened?"

"Which part of 'what happened'?" Yseult asks, "The bit where I was shut up in the house, or the bit where only a sedative stopped someone from trying to do unspeakable things to me?"

"It's not you, you know." He says, quietly, as he bundles together some toys to put in a box, "Mike was a nut, and Tom Jackson's a bully. He only picked on you because Malcolm wasn't here, and neither was Taylor. The power went to his head, so he thought he could have whatever he wanted."

"I wasn't the only single woman in the compound, Pete."

"Maybe not - but you're the only one who doesn't have a male relative lurking nearby, either blood or an in-law. Jackson saw you as an easy target. And you proved that you weren't."

"Not when he had Erin under his control, I didn't." She says, softly, "To keep her safe, I would've let him do whatever he wanted - but I had that sedative left over from when Malcolm was ill. If I hadn't had that - then…" her voice trails off.

"But you did - so the point's moot." Pete's voice is very firm, "He tried, he failed. Your virtue's intact and Malcolm's not living in the dark ages. You know he'd give up his life for Erin if he had to - just as you would. If you want to tell him about it - which I know you well enough to know that you will - then he'll get it."

"I know - and I trust him absolutely to do that; I just wish it hadn't happened. I feel like I'm a nut magnet." She pulls a face, "A nauseous nut magnet."

"Don't you dare - it goes down the bog or I'm leaving." Pete advises, "I do _not_ do sick."

"It's okay. It's passing." Yseult reaches for another biscuit, and starts nibbling, "God, I hope this has subsided by the time Malcolm gets back. The one thing I don't want to do is throw up on him."

"Yeah - that'll really spoil the big romantic reunion." Pete grins.

* * *

Dinner in the Shannon household is more cheerful than it's been in a while. Zoe is chattering happily about school again, while Maddy is fidgeting with anticipation of seeing Mark for the first time in weeks. It's a way of life for a Military family, of course, but nonetheless she can't wait to see him. Josh and Skye are collectively happy that everything's settled down again in the bar, and Elisabeth is pleased not to be advising on the treatment of bruises for the first time in at least two weeks.

"Boylan's been taking care to have a good listen to conversations while he's been delivering beer, Dad." Josh reports, "The gossip's pretty definitive about Jackson being the one who killed Parker. I think everyone knows that it was him - the trouble is, it's just speculation. No one can prove it."

"I'll see what we shake out of the others when the Commander's back." Jim says, swirling a rather nice berry wine in his glass, "I imagine that they'll be pretty quick to point the blame at him when they realise that he's trying to blame them."

"Don't you just love all that honour amongst thieves?" Skye says, cheerfully, but then she looks thoughtful, "D'you think we'll have to banish Tom from the colony?"

"I dunno." Jim admits, "I think we'd all rather not - particularly given that Jackson's a bully who had power go to his head. He's not Andrew Fickett - we can't keep him under house arrest; but then again, we can't afford to start chucking people out of the Colony. There aren't enough of us; and, whether we like it or not, he's still capable of having kids, so we kind of need his DNA even if we don't need his attitude."

Skye nods, "I wouldn't put it past him to grovel like hell once the Commander's back. He'll know that he's one step away from being thrown out, and who wants that? It's the ultimate sanction, and Taylor's only used it once - and that didn't last very long."

They eat in silence for a while. No one wants to see someone exiled - not in this environment - but what do they do with someone who's caused such uproar in their community? Not to mention the killing of a fellow colonist. Imprisonment isn't really an option - but nor is the death penalty. The colony's just too small to start executing people, even if anyone thought it would be justifiable to do it. But then again, they can't just act like nothing happened. They have to do _something_.

"I think I'll leave it to the Commander to decide." Jim says, eventually, "That's what he's paid to do, after all."

* * *

It's very frustrating. If he were driving himself, then Malcolm would probably go faster; as he knows these routes well. But there's a convoy behind him, and he doesn't want to get separated from it - not with the evening drawing in. It doesn't do to be apart from a group of vehicles in a forest at night. Not one that's full of dinosaurs, at least.

Two rovers back, Washington is sitting back and smiling, "You must be pleased to be getting back, Commander. It's been a hell of a trip."

"Don't I know it." He grins at her, "Jaunts out into the desert to find portals. God, I must be getting old - all I want right now is to get back home and hit the sack."

"I know that feeling. The best part of this is knowing that there are no rosters to do for the overnight stop. That's always the biggest chore."

"That's why I get you to do it."

She leans in close to him, "And I do it _so_ well."

"Better than anyone else."

She yawns, "Yeah. I think that I'll hit the shower, then bed. Tomorrow, we hit Boylan's and celebrate the end of a long trip out."

"Count me in."

At the head of the convoy, Malcolm is straining his eyes for the lights of the Colony, knowing that he's only got one more hill to crest.

"Finally." He says, relieved, "Home."

Behind him, Janet looks out over his shoulder, "Why does it have those walls?"

"To keep the dinosaurs out, Janet." Mira supplies, "You've only seen buitreraptors - we have brachiosaurs coming by quite regularly. They may be herbivorous, but their feet don't discriminate between ground and houses. The biggest threat are the acceraptors and carnotaurs."

Janet falls silent. She knows what happened to her professor last night, and the fact that he was killed by a dinosaur is still sinking in, "So, they can't get inside, can they?"

"No. The fences are too high and too strong." Malcolm advises, "We get the odd pterosaur overhead from time to time - though there's one species that used to breed here - so we had to find a way to redirect them to new breeding grounds. They were pretty nasty creatures, though it was just territorial behaviour."

"You sound so accustomed to it all."

"I've lived here for nearly ten years, Janet. I've acclimatised to it - not to mention the fact that I came here by choice. Once you've had a couple of days to get settled, I'll show you my labs. If you're a climate scientist, then we could do with your knowledge - it'll help us make sure we don't repeat humanity's mistakes."

The gates are rising, and someone up on the tower is waving at them. The lights are pretty bright after the dark approach, and Malcolm is squinting painfully as he looks around for someone to greet him. While his preference is for it to be his wife, at the moment, anyone in the senior team will do. He needs to get the Commander into the infirmary as soon as he can.

Fortunately, he spots Jim approaching, with Elisabeth not far behind, and pulls up. "He's two rovers back. Be careful - he thinks that Lieutenant Washington's alive again." His voice is low, to avoid alerting the gathering crowd. It's only then that he gets out and greets Jim more overtly, as Elisabeth makes her way to where Taylor is pulling up.

"How did it go?"

"A bit of everything, I think, Jim. We had good things happen, and bad. I'll file a report in the morning if that's okay?"

"Sure. Max is probably still at home - I told her you were due back tonight, but she's probably putting Erin to bed or something. It's been something of a marathon here, too."

"So you'll be putting in a report as well, then."

"Yep." Jim is grinning, then turns to find that Guzman has arrived, "Good - grab a security detail and get the vehicles back to the garages. I think that our expeditionary heroes are wanting to head for home."

Guzman nods, "I'll get an inventory off Dunham." He turns to summon Reilly, who trots over and accepts his instructions with an efficient nod.

"You go and find your wife." Jim advises Malcolm, "I'll take care of the Commander."

"Hang on - before you do, we have three survivors. We lost one on the way back - long story. We need to find them some accommodation for tonight before we take stock in the morning."

"I'll see to it." He turns to see Janet emerging from the rover, Mira standing nearby, "You look after the Commander, Shannon. I'll get our guests a bed for the night."

"Thanks, Mira." Relieved that he only has one problem to deal with, he hastens over to Taylor's rover, where Elisabeth is being as diplomatic as she can be, "I appreciate that, Nathaniel - but just humour me. I had some odd results from your blood tests before you went out, so I need to be sure that it's nothing. You're rather important to this colony, and we'd rather not lose you just yet."

Irked, Taylor steps out of the rover, "I'm fine, Doc. But if you insist."

"Everyone will be coming by in the next couple of days for the same attention - I just want to check you over now." Elisabeth adds, "It's all routine."

He can't argue with that - it's standard protocol for people returning from outside the colony to get a medical check. It's just not usual for it to happen so immediately.

"Is it me, or is that looking too easy?" Mira asks Malcolm, as he carefully retrieves the laptop from the service panel.

"Elisabeth's pretty good at diplomatic persuasion, Mira." He answers, "I imagine she'll stuff a sedative into his arm as soon as she can so that she can get him onto a bio-bed and see how much damage she's got to reverse."

"I'll look after our arrivals. You go and see Max."

He smiles at her, "Thanks, Mira. Not just for this but - for keeping us alive."

"It's my job, isn't it?"

"Yes - but thanks all the same." Turning he hastens for home.

It doesn't take long, and he can see that there's a light on in the house, though he can't help but wonder why his wife wasn't waiting in the marketplace. Is she ill?

Trying not to be worried, he opens the door, "What - no streamers or bunting? Don't you love me anymore?"

Yseult looks up, startled out of a light doze on the couch, but she stares at him for a moment as though she can't believe he's really there. Then, at last, she moves, "Malcolm - you're home."

"So I am." He smiles at her, opening his arms as she approaches, and enclosing them about her as she cuddles up to his chest, "Are you okay?"

"Mostly." She mumbles into the cotton of his shirt, "God, you smell sweaty."

"Thanks, I think."

"Come on. Shower." She pulls at the front of his shirt, and he follows her, "Then news."

"News?" He looks intrigued, "What sort of news?"

She smiles at him as she unfastens his shirt, "What, you want to know now?"

"I've never not been a nosy parker. You know that."

"I'll tell you in the shower."

Grinning cheerfully, he shrugs out of the shirt, and draws her close as she begins to remove her own clothes in order to join him. For a while, there's just the sound of water coming from the shower head - but only for a while.

"You're _what_?"

* * *

Elisabeth reviews the results on her plex, and takes a sip of herb tea. It could be worse - but then again, it could be better. Whether they like it or not, while she can stop the delusions, and get the Commander back to the present, that's it. He's not going to be the same man he was before he was bitten - there's a bit too much damage. He won't be able to process thoughts as quickly as he once did, and his memory is going to be patchy. It is, however, better than nothing: with a senior team that's suitably empowered, it'll be enough.

Rising from her desk, she wanders through to the ward, where the Commander is sleeping, granted privacy by curtains while a nurse checks his vital signs. The medication that's eradicating the parasite is still suffusing his bloodstream, so he's under sedation for the time being; but there's no getting away from the fact that whatever compound they isolated out in the desert is the only reason that she can do this. In terms of getting him back, they really were down to the wire. Without it, he would've been too far gone to bring back.

The sound of footsteps rouses her attention, "How's he doing?"

"I don't know yet, Jim." She accepts his embrace, "The damage isn't reversible - but there's enough of his neurons left to take on the work that was done by the ones he's lost. We should be able to stop him from seeing Lieutenant Washington, and the memory blanks that accompany those hallucinations - but it's going to make him far less able to make snap decisions, and he's going to need our help a lot more than he ever used to. He used to _want_ it - but now he's going to _need_ it."

"But we'll get him back, right?"

"Mostly. I think we could have issues with memory lapses now and again - but he'll essentially be the Nathaniel Taylor that we know."

"Better that than the alternative."

"I'll ask Malcolm to investigate that compound, though. It saved the Commander - if he hadn't been taking it, then we would've lost him long before he got back. I think Maddy's been looking for a doctoral project ever since she went back to work. Perhaps she can do it."

Jim nods, "Oh - how's the skipper doing?" He turns to look across the way, where another wall of curtains conceals Mateo and Diego, who has been sitting over him since they were escorted in from the convoy.

"Much better. It looks like he was mildly allergic to one of the ingredients of the compound, so I've taken him off it and gone back to a good, old fashioned splint. His results are very good - so he should be mended in about six weeks."

"Mira's sorting out housing for them."

"I'll recall the arrivals team." Elisabeth says, "It's a difficult enough transition as it is when you know you're coming - but to be wrenched here? That's a very different thing - they'll have a lot of adjusting to do."

"Well - we'll help them, won't we? That's what a community's for."

She nods, "That we will." Turning, she leads Jim back to her office, "I just need to log off - then we can get out of here."

Safely behind curtains, Taylor opens his eyes and looks up at the ceiling, "Hell, this is strong stuff."

"It would be." Washington's eyes are a little sad, "That's what sedatives are for. To keep you sedated."

"You should get your head down."

"I can't," She says simply, "And I think you know why. Don't you?"

He's silent for a while, "Yeah."

She looks around the small space enclosed by the white walls of the curtains, "This isn't what I would've wanted for a goodbye - but, hey, when are we given a choice?"

"I should've done something to save you." He says, a lump in his throat.

"You did. You got me out of that filthy world and into this one. I had years of life in a place where I could breathe unaided - where I could see the stars. How does it get better than that?"

"But Lucas…"

"I know." She smiles at him again, "That wasn't your fault. Sometimes we want the impossible, don't we?"

"We do." He agrees, "You were in my head all along, weren't you?"

"I think so. It was a good place to be; I think I was in your head a lot, wasn't I?"

"More than you should've been." Taylor admits.

"Perhaps - but we both know it's time for me to go. Even if I wasn't really here."

"Am I having a discussion with my own imagination?"

"Does it matter?" She smiles again, a warm smile that he recalls from harsher, crueller times. A smile that could call him back from the darkest of his memories and moods. A smile that he lived for…

"We had good times, didn't we?"

"We sure did. But there are plenty more good times to come for you, Nathaniel." She addresses him by name - something she rarely did in life, "Don't waste them looking at the past, okay? Make me glad that I knew you - that you're still the man I loved."

"I promise."

"I'll hold you to it." She says, softly, bending to kiss him on the cheek. For a moment, it's as though there's something there - the briefest flicker of contact like the brush of a butterfly's wing. He closes his eyes, not wanting to see her vanish.

When he opens them, she's gone.

* * *

"Your vitals are excellent, and everything's looking very good indeed, Commander." Elisabeth says, smiling at him, "I think you'll be pretty disgusted to know that you're going to have to leave the infirmary and get back to work."

"Much as I respect and like you, Doc, those are the words I've been hanging on for for nearly two weeks." Taylor grins at her, "Thanks for what you've done - I know I'm not gonna be the same as I was before I got bitten, but I'm getting there, right?"

"I think so." She agrees, "Just bear in mind that your thought processes are going to be a bit all over the place for a while longer - take it easy for a few more days."

"Just as long as you _mean_ 'a few'. I'm not being signed off for six weeks or whatever."

"Fair enough. One week."

"Three days."

"Five."

"Done."

Elisabeth laughs, "Go on - get out of my infirmary."

Taylor is not surprised to find Jim in the Command Centre, with Malcolm and Yseult alongside. There's a lot to catch up on, and he's curious to know what happened in the Colony while he was away. Doubtless not that much with Shannon in charge - he'd trust that man to the ends of the earth and back.

"I hear you're going to be parents again, congratulations." He is not surprised to see that Yseult's left hand is in its customary place upon Malcolm's thigh, and they're sitting very, very close together.

"Thank you, Nathaniel." She smiles at him, "It's good to see you up and about again."

"It's good to be up and about again." He agrees, "I've got a lot of catching up to do. When do you want to have the longest senior staff meeting we've ever had?"

"Sooner rather than later, I think." Malcolm sighs, "I think we've all got a lot to report."

"Fine. I'll schedule it as soon as possible."

"I'll only come if there's cake." Jim warns.

Taylor snorts with laughter, "I'll have Malcolm bake it."

Rising from his chair, Jim steps aside, "Have your desk back, Taylor. I don't want it back for a very long time. If ever."

"Just as well." Taylor advises him, "'Cause you're not getting it."

He knows they're watching him - but he understands why. From what Elisabeth was saying, he would previously have regarded such scrutiny with intense paranoia, instead of accepting it. But he does accept it; well, mostly.

It's not perfect; but it's a start.


	26. Succession

**A/N:** Thanks for your reviews - I wanted to give Wash a good send-off, as this was the only way I could get her into the story. Sadly the loose ends are starting to get tied up - but you do at least get to enjoy Tom Jackson's trial, and the resolution of an inevitable dilemma. What to do with a murderer?

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Six

 _Succession_

The house is sparsely decorated, as its occupant had nothing much to put in it, but as small cuddly toy dog sits resplendent upon a shelf, a few other knick-knacks set here and there following their removal from the plastic box that had contained them.

Janet is sitting quietly on the sofa, nursing a cup of mint tea, and looking rather pensive as Elisabeth checks her medical results on a plex, "So, am I okay?"

Elisabeth nods, "Yes - there's nothing to suggest that the travel through the portal did any damage to your system. Being inside the boat, I think, helped with that. Other than Mr Romero's broken leg, you were all remarkably unscathed by the ordeal."

"Thanks."

"How do you feel, other than physically?" Elisabeth ventures, quietly, "It's a bit of a transition for people who came here by choice, but you were snatched by a natural portal."

She shrugs, "It's difficult to say. I didn't have much going on in Florida - my Mom died when I was very young, and my Dad took off when I turned sixteen. I didn't have anyone really - except for Diego, and he's here. The things that matter the most to me came here too: so it's not like I've left much of a life behind. Besides," she adds, "It looks like the planet was going downhill anyway."

"Malcolm's hoping you'll join his science team. You're an environmental scientist aren't you?"

She nods, "Just looking at that screen you've got - I know that I won't get half of what's going on in there. It looks pretty sophisticated."

"We all came here to learn, Janet. That was what sent a lot of the scientists here - even though they knew they couldn't go back afterwards. Just think of it like that - they came to learn, and now you're doing the same."

"Bryce would be fascinated." She sighs, "Or, at least, he would've once. Maybe this might've got him back on track again."

Elisabeth knows about Falker now, "Perhaps. It's a shame - we'll never know."

"Has Malcolm got the laptop working again?" she asks, suddenly, "Bryce was so intent on that - I always wondered if there was a breakthrough on it that might've vindicated him."

"I don't know. It wouldn't surprise me if he's already tried to build a power cable. The technology's pretty old, so he's going to have to research it before he does. Why don't we go over to the labs and see? You haven't been there yet, have you?"

Sure enough, Malcolm is poring over specs on his plex when Elisabeth delivers Janet to his office, "Hi Elisabeth - ah, you've brought my hoped-for new recruit, too. Hello Janet, come in - take a seat."

"I'll leave you to it." Elisabeth smiles at him, "I do human circuitry."

He smiles and waves as she departs, then turns to Janet, "Sorry, this is taking longer than I thought - the records I have tend to cover machines from the 2010s, so it's a bit of guesswork. I don't want to frazzle the thing."

She sits alongside him, "Have you really read all of Bryce's books?"

He nods, still perusing the schematic, "When they came out, they caused something of a stir, as they seemed really prescient; a man from the early 2000s predicting exactly what had happened a century later. It seemed that he'd predicted everything - the atmospheric deterioration, the need for rebreathers - the disparity between rich and poor; the wealthy living in domes, while the poor had to make do with thick windows and barely functioning air conditioning."

Janet frowns, "He never mentioned anything like that. He was more a 'the world is going to burn' sort of guy."

"I was beginning to wonder after he started behaving like I was a nefarious conspirator." Malcolm admits, "He sounded a bit too extreme for the measured tones of those books, which started me on that thought about someone else using them as a cover to put his own work out instead. Those reissues caused a sensation and made him a lot of money."

"Poor Bryce - he only earned a great heap of ridicule."

"Sometimes it's hard to tell between pseudoscience and a real breakthrough, Janet." Malcolm advises, "The best way is to publish and go through peer review - which is hard; believe me, I know from personal experience - otherwise people just assume that you've published a book because your evidence is poor and you don't want your bad methodology to be shown up."

Once he's got his head around the setup, it doesn't take Malcolm long to assemble some components and form them into something that'll at least fit into the power port of the computer, "I'm going to have to leave it in your hands now, Janet. This thing is far too archaic for me to use - I'll probably make a complete dog's dinner of booting it up."

She smiles at him, and lifts the thick screen up from the equally thick processor. Then she presses the power button and sighs with relief as the machine starts up.

Their interest lasts about ten minutes, until they find a huge directory of files, and start working through them. Even to a trained eye, it's clear that, whatever results Falker had, he was so heavily invested in confirmation bias that he couldn't see anything other than what he wanted to see.

"Look at this - this result is a direct contradiction of his interpretation," Janet says, sadly, "it's like he saw it didn't agree with his view - but he just decided that it was incorrect."

Malcolm nods. He's seen it before - a lot of people are guilty of this, and he's done it himself before now, "It's just good, old-fashioned theory-based evidence making." He sighs, "I fell into that trap when I was at Trinity, and tried to publish a paper that made me look an utter idiot. It got shot down in flames before I could even approach an academic journal to accept it. My professors were a hell of a lot wiser than I was - but it taught me a good lesson about accepting evidence for what it is, not what I want it to be."

The stupid thing is that, in spite of his wild assertions and interpretations, his data's pretty solid. Had he treated it more objectively, then the outcome could have been very different - but it's not something that they'll ever know now. Besides, the man's dead, so they can't even talk him down from his heights of obsession and convince him that he's actually got some good stuff, if only he'd interpret it more sensibly.

"Do you want me to work through this?" Janet asks, after a few more minutes' silent perusal, "It might not be in line with the world we're in now - but it's worth recording, isn't it?"

"Definitely." Malcolm agrees, "The interpretations of the data are way off - but the data's sound. It should be recorded - I'll show you how to do it; we have a central repository that stores all our records. It should be possible to rig up something that'll transmit it from the laptop to a plex, and then it's a simple matter to get it into the Eye."

"The Eye?"

"That central repository I was telling you about."

"Right." She nods, "So, does that mean I have a job?"

He nods, "Welcome to the team."

* * *

It's been a long day of questioning: five men, each seen one after the other, and forced to endure the stony glare of the Commander as they attempt to justify their behaviour.

Butch Thackeray, of course, is the most forthright - and the most sensible. His eyes are not defiant, but not submissive either, and he looks back at them with an attitude of 'well, that's just the way it is' that suggests that he's not going to be tiresome about it.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time." He admits, "Tom was convinced that we were all being royally shafted by the senior team; but he couldn't persuade people - he wasn't a good talker. He tried painting slogans - but they didn't make any real impact."

"It might've helped if he could spell." Jim advises, sagely.

"Joe…"

"Joe Peck?" Taylor clarifies.

"Yeah - Joe. He knew Bob Parker - they were old drinking pals. He was pretty pissed off as well, because he'd just been passed over for promotion to Orchard Manager. He was a bit of a politico - always coming out with stuff from _Das Kapital_ and _State and Revolution_. You name it, he had it - and he could talk it, too. People listened to him, and Tom got him to hold meetings - we even started sending these papers out - Bob dictated them and Tom wrote them."

"We could tell." Jim says, sagely.

"Once Bob got involved, it started to take off." Butch admits, "People really started listening, and suddenly we were at the forefront of a political movement. I just thought we were a griping club - but suddenly we were getting people riled up, and Tom and Bob really thought we could take over. Once you left, Commander, that really did it."

"What happened to Bob?" Taylor asks, quietly.

"What I thought would happen. Once he had power, it went to his head - we had a lot of people in the marketplace when he gave that speech that got people so wound up and demanding he take over. He was pretty much preaching to the converted, and once everyone got going, the people in the market place were too scared to do anything else but go with it."

"Max kinda noticed that." Jim murmurs.

"In what way?" Taylor asks, bemused.

"She's German, isn't she?"

"Ah." Taylor looks back at Butch, "Please continue."

"We found out pretty damn quick that there was a good reason why Chris didn't give him the manager job - he was a completely rubbish leader. He took over your desk, Commander, and said he was in charge - and that we should get back to work. Tom didn't like that very much - but he wasn't the one who swayed the people to demand that he take over; and he wasn't the one who picked up a bunch of strongmen to protect him. They made us leave."

"And we all know how it went from there." Jim finishes.

"Oh, he let us into the Command Centre; but when it came to actual authority, he kept it all for himself. I s'pose I saw it coming, so I just went with it. Maybe I shouldn't have, but I did."

"And then?" Taylor prompts.

"Tom had a massive argument with Bob - telling him that he was only there because we asked him - but Bob said that we wouldn't be here at all without him either. They were both right, of course - but Bob was the one who had the power, and he wasn't giving it up to anyone." He looks a little uncomfortable, "The last I saw, Tom was suggesting that they should settle their differences, and Bob agreed - asking him over for a drink."

"I take it that was the last time anyone saw Bob alive?"

Butch nods.

"Tom didn't say anything about it - but he wasn't the same when he took over. There was something weird about him - like he'd found out something about himself that he liked. We were all pretty damn wary of him after that - because he made it clear that we were there because he'd decided that he was going to let us."

"What about his behaviour with Max?" Jim asks, causing Taylor to turn and look at him in surprise.

"He didn't talk about her specifically." Butch is clearly trying to recall conversations, "But he was starting to get paranoid, and vicious. He was convinced that everyone was out to get him, so he decided to put the senior staff under house arrest. Then he had all the children confined in the school and nursery; though we didn't know why at the time."

Taylor frowns, "Why did he do it?"

"Partly because he wanted to increase working hours but not wages, but also so he could hide the fact that he wanted to make Doctor Wallace's wife sleep with him. She cut him with a sword when he tried to make her the first time, so he wanted to have a hold over her so she wouldn't do it again."

"But why her? She wasn't the only single woman in the Colony." Jim presses.

"Simple - she cut him with that sword. He was picking on most of the single women, but because of that, he wanted to make her submit to him, and that was the best way as far as he was concerned. He knew she'd do anything to protect her daughter." Even he looks revolted at that.

They sit in silence for a while, until Butch looks up at them, "So. What's it to be? Sewage duty? Demotion? Garbage disposal? Whatever - It's not like we don't deserve it, is it?"

Taylor looks at him, and shakes his head, "You're the only one who's been straight with us; the rest of your crew were trying to justify themselves and make out that they were only following orders."

"Like hell we were. We were in it because we thought we could live it easy while everyone else did the work. It went south once Bob and Tom started fighting with each other for overall power - but none of us went into it blindly."

"We can't afford to start throwing people out of here. No matter what happens; there aren't any more pilgrims coming, so capital punishment isn't an option."

"Believe me, if it had been - Tom would've used it." Butch says, "It's a precedent that we don't need."

"It's one we're not getting." Jim agrees.

"Like I said, you've been completely up-front with us - and no one's reported any bad stuff on your part. We need your skills as a ploughman, so you go back to that. Your cronies'll have to do a bit of garbage disposal, but then they'll go back to their jobs as well."

"And Tom?" Butch asks, rather incisively.

"I'm still working on that one."

* * *

"This needs to be done properly," Taylor muses, "If we're not going to be accused of being a dictatorship."

Jim nods. They might've been able to enact discipline in a more military fashion when Ken Foster was murdered - but that was back in a time when no one commented over the military command structure of the colony. After all that's happened, regardless of the outcome, people are still very much thinking that it's time to move to a more civilian mode of government. It was always there - Malcolm's griping was the most overt evidence of its presence - but the ease with which Bob Parker talked everyone round to his way of thinking is proof enough that to go back to the old ways isn't going to cut it this time around.

It'll be hard to have a proper jury trial, though - there are too many people who were adversely affected by Jackson's punitive measures involving their children. The best thing to do would be to look to the people who weren't in the colony when it the takeover happened, but a fairly large portion of them belong to the Security teams, which just sets a militaristic cast over the entire business.

"We can't have Malcolm on it either - not when Max came close to being used by Jackson as a 'comfort woman'." Jim adds, "But we do need a group of people to oversee the process. Should we ask for nominations?"

Taylor shakes his head, "No - we just pick a random selection of people, and weed out the ones who are most likely to lose their objectivity. As long as we have a rounded selection, and everyone knows that this is a decision that'll be made by the colony as a whole through a representative jury, then Jackson won't have a leg to stand on if he tries to make out that I'm acting like a dictator."

He turns to his plex and calls up the Colony manifest, then sets it to extract a random selection of fifty individuals between the ages of eighteen and eighty. No one in the Colony's that old - but at least that means none of the adults get left out of the long-list.

"Once we have a basic list of thirty, we can get them together and weed out the people who know Jackson, the ones who have an axe to grind with him, and the ones who got hurt by him while he was in charge." He says, "Hopefully that'll get us down to something akin to a jury."

Jim nods, "We can meet in the assembly hall. Tomorrow?"

Taylor looks up at him, "The sooner, the better."

* * *

While Terra Nova has no lawyers; nonetheless, Jackson has been offered someone to help with his defence - but he's declined it. Instead, he sits at a table and glares at the assembled people who are present to judge him. It's set up like the courtrooms that Jim remembers from his days as a cop - though there's no judge. Instead, Taylor and Mira have been jointly given that function: Taylor because he's the commander, and Mira because she wasn't present during the incident, and thus has no subjective motives. They'd have asked Elisabeth to sit with them on the basis of her known honesty; but she's giving medical evidence, so she can't be a judge as well.

Being the man in charge before the takeover, Jim has the rather unenviable task of being a prosecutor - though his primary intention is to present the evidence that they have against Jackson, and leave the decisions over his guilt, or otherwise, to the group of twelve people sitting nearby.

Behind him, half the colony is crammed into the room, and he knows that Malcolm and Yseult are sitting close to the front - Yseult clasping her husband's hand very tightly. His expression is hostile, as he looks at the back of the head of a man who used his daughter as a bargaining chip against his wife, but he remains silent. They didn't have to tell him he couldn't sit at that table with the Commander - he knew it and recused himself before Jim mentioned the subject.

"Mr Jackson." Taylor rises to his feet to address the accused, "While you're known to have committed numerous offences, the offences that you're to be tried for are the murder of Bob Parker, and the forcible imprisonment of the Colony's children. How do you plead. Guilty, or not guilty?"

Jackson shrugs, "No comment."

Jim rolls his eyes. It's going to be like _that_ then. Fair enough - the evidence he has is pretty extensive, and Butch has already agreed to give evidence. As he's not been backward in coming forward about his involvement, no one is viewing him as a 'snitch'. In spite of all that's happened, he's still respected for his honesty.

"Shannon - present your evidence." Taylor says, and sits again as Jim rises.

"I'd be lying if it was all cast iron, Commander." He advises, "A lot of it's circumstantial, but the rest is based on first hand testimony."

He ignores Jackson's smirk.

Elisabeth is, as expected, the first to give evidence, "No. Bob Parker's death wasn't an accident." She says, as Jim asks her to clarify the manner of death, "I wasn't able to undertake a full post-mortem, as we were sent away. What I _can_ say is that the evidence I was able to assess pointed to smothering. Mr Parker was on his bed, supine, and there was significant bruising and discolouration around his mouth. There was also some blood and bruising around his nostrils, which leads me to conclude that he was suffocated by someone who placed their hand over his mouth, and pinched his nose shut. The presence of damage also indicates that he was conscious at the time, and attempted to free himself."

"Who sent you away?" Jim asks.

"Tom Jackson." She answers, calmly, "He demanded that we leave, and insisted that Parker had died in his sleep overnight."

He knows it's a question she can't answer - but in the interests of proving that the procedure's transparent, he looks at her, "Is it possible to determine who actually killed him?"

"No." She says, "I was prevented from carrying out a post mortem, so it wasn't possible to look for more detailed forensic evidence that might have identified the killer."

"But you're satisfied that he was killed, rather than just died?"

"Yes. I'm completely satisfied that his death was a killing, not a natural event."

"Your witness." Jim turns to Jackson, to leave him to cross examine - only for him to sit and ignore them both.

They sit for a moment, then Taylor turns to Elisabeth, I guess you can step down, Doctor."

The court is transfixed as Butch takes the stand, but Jackson ignores him, too. Even though his former colleague reiterates his entire conversation with Jim and the Commander for all to hear, and it's pretty damning stuff, he doesn't move. But then, didn't Butch say that Jackson is no orator? What can he say that's going to overturn this tidal wave of evidence?

"Aren't you going to cross examine?" Taylor asks, as Jim hands over.

Silence.

"Suit yourself. You can step down, Mr Thackeray."

For the sake of appearances, Jim calls the others - Zack Drummond, Joe Peck, Andy Packer and Paul Thatcher; but their evidence is pretty awful in comparison to Butch's - purely because they are only interested in covering their own asses; and that comes through pretty loud and clear to everyone in the room. Thus they're not on the stand for long.

The last witness is Sharon, who can comment on the forcible removal of the children from their homes, "I wasn't given any warning, Mr Shannon," she says, "We'd been closed down and the children who were old enough were told to report to the fields, while the youngest ones were left at home with their mothers. I'd been out in the fields myself for about two weeks."

"What changed?" Jim asks.

"I don't know - but Mr Jackson arrived on my doorstep before dawn and made me get up and go to Max's house to get Erin. He sent two of his hangers-on with me, to make sure I did it. Max was still asleep when we arrived, but I was expected to take Erin straightaway - with a bag of clothes for her - and take her back to the nursery. Then I had to do the same to Maddy Shannon, and then on to everyone else who had young children. They were threatening to have the children board there, so I had to arrange to get them fed, and find beds for them to sleep on." She shudders, "It was horrible - the children were screaming, and I wasn't allowed to take them - the two men did it."

Given how many people ended up as 'hangers on' for Jackson, Jim isn't interested in identifying them - the colonists know who they were, and the outbreak of broken noses and black eyes suggests that some form of justice has already been meted out on that score.

"Do you know why you were asked to collect all the young children?" Taylor asks.

Sharon shakes her head, "No - I wasn't told why. Just told to do it." She doesn't need to give an explanation - Butch has already done that - but it's worth making the point.

"Your witness?" Jim offers, though Jackson ignores him again. It's weird - perhaps now that all the evidence is being set out before him, he's truly lost for words and can't think of anything to say. So he's trying to ignore it in the hope that it'll all go away. He's seen it before when people have faced trial for serious crimes.

Taylor shakes his head, "Anyone else?"

"No, Commander. I think we'd just get into a long round of accusations and angry stuff. Unless you have any witnesses you'd like to present?" Jim asks Jackson. Who continues to ignore him. He could ask Yseult to come to the stand, of course, but why put her through that? The evidence of the others has been enough.

"In that case, the prosecution rests. Mr Jackson, perhaps you'd like to begin your defence?"

Jackson shrugs and looks off into the distance. How do you defend the indefensible, after all?

"So, you're not going to offer any defence against these accusations?" Taylor asks, more firmly, "This is your opportunity to put your side of things over. Don't you want to do that?"

"This isn't justice. It's a show trial." He says, "You're just doing this so people won't think that you're a dictator."

Taylor raises his eyebrows, "So you're going to comment after all. Fair enough. Get it off your chest." He sits back and folds his arms, expectantly. There's no point in explaining that the jury was selected at random, and then carefully winnowed through to extract anyone whose presence might be clouded by extensive bias. Nor is there any point in advising that he'll abide by the verdict of the jury - what ever it is. They've had the colony's first proper trial, so Jackson can hardly complain that he's been unfairly treated. God - even when he gets something that he wants, he's still not happy. Some people just can't be helped, it seems.

"You think what you want. That's your right as a citizen; but if you don't say anything in your defence, then you're in no position to complain at the jury's verdict. So: last chance. Are you going to call any defence witnesses?"

Jackson's response is an expletive.

"Fine. Have it your way." Rising to his feet, Taylor turns to the jurors, "You've heard the evidence presented to you in this courtroom. What follows now is up to you. While we are using the standard of reasonable doubt over absolute proof, I won't accept anything other than a unanimous decision from you. It must be either guilty, or not guilty. That said, if you can't come to a decision, I will consider a majority verdict only if you have voted at least three times - but it must be a majority of at least ten, no less. You have as long as you need to reach a decision - but make sure you consider only the evidence that's been set before you. You must not use conjecture, sentiment, personal antipathy or supposition to make this decision. If you need more time, then you have it. If you need to break for a drink or something to eat, ask. Just make sure that the decision you reach is the one that _you_ consider to be right - not the one that you think you want the colony to hear."

He watches as they rise and file out to one of the side rooms nearby.

"What now?" Mira asks, as he sits again.

"Now? We wait."

* * *

The weather is balmy, and people are content to mill around in the marketplace for the time being. The only folks who aren't there are the ones who are obliged by work commitments to be elsewhere - but this is, for the colonists at least, history in the making. The last time someone killed a fellow colonist, no one stood trial like this.

Yseult is sitting very close to her husband, who holds her hand tightly in both of his, "Are you alright?"

"Yes. I'm glad I didn't have to be a witness, and I'm not feeling sick. So we're okay on both fronts." She smiles at him, but then her expression falters slightly, "What if they find him not guilty?"

"On the basis of that evidence? I don't think it's likely - nor his claim that it was just a show-trial for Taylor's personal benefit."

"But what if they think that a guilty verdict will mean that Jackson gets thrown out? I remember the atmosphere when the Commander exiled Howard Milner. No one wants to see that happen again. Even when they found out it was Officer Curran, and he was kicked out, the Commander rehabilitated him. It's such a dread sanction that they might find him not guilty just to make sure that he isn't exiled."

"I don't think he'll do it." Malcolm muses, "What he'll do instead is anyone's guess - but exile just isn't an option anymore. The moment we set a precedent with it, it becomes a usable punishment, and sometime in the future, it might be abused. I don't doubt for a moment that Jackson would've abused it if he hadn't been overthrown by circumstances."

Yseult shudders, "He might've thrown _me_ out." Unnerved at the idea, she cuddles into him, and he rests his arm about her shoulders.

"We don't have to find out if that would've happened." He says to her, softly, "You made sure of that. You're a pretty resourceful person when you put your mind to it."

"Thanks. I try." She smiles again, "Come on - it looks like the jury are really thinking this over. Let's go and see if Sal's got anything on the grill. Despite my comprehensive puking this morning, I'm feeling rather peckish."

It takes another two hours before the jury send word that they've reached a verdict, and everyone assembles rather nervously in the hall, wondering what'll happen if it's guilty verdict, and what'll happen if it isn't.

Jackson seems impassive - but tense. The sanction of expulsion is still a spectre at the back of everyone's minds; though most wonder if it really would go that far. It's possible that that was one of the reasons why the jurors took so long to come to their verdict.

They've appointed Alfredo Costa, one of the construction team whose wife has gained a reputation as the Colony's foremost wedding dress maker, to be their foreman, and he rises to his feet at Taylor's prompt, "Have you reached a verdict?"

"Yes, Commander."

"And you've all agreed?"

"Yes, Commander."

There seems little point in asking Jackson to rise to his feet to hear the verdict. He sits impassively, slumped in his chair as though bored with the whole business. Instead, Taylor takes a deep breath, "So, how do you find the defendant: Guilty, or not Guilty?"

There's a pregnant pause; everyone seems to lean forward slightly. Except Jackson.

"Guilty, Commander."

While hardly unexpected, it still sends something of a shockwave through the assembly. For the first time, a colonist has been judged by a jury of his peers; and they've accepted that he might end up being kicked out - but taken that risk anyway.

"Thank you." Taylor nods, and Alfredo sits again. "Tom Jackson, you have been found guilty of murder and forcible imprisonment by a jury of your peers. You refused to defend yourself - but I ask you again. Have you anything to say?"

Nothing.

"I imagine people are expecting me to throw the ultimate sanction at you, aren't they? Well - you'll be pleased to hear that I don't intend to do that. Given what you got up to in my absence, it's a precedent that I definitely don't want to set. I did it once, and it tore my conscience into little tiny bits - but I imagine that there'll be others in the future who won't find that to be such a problem.

"You're not going to be getting away with it. You took a life, and you used this colony's youngest members as personal pawns for your own sick reasons. That demands punishment, and that's what you'll get. I'm well aware that the maintenance crews have a particular job that they find particularly revolting, so much so that they have to take turns to do it so that no one has to deal with the matter more than once or twice a year. I'm sure they'll be pleased to know that none of them are ever going to have to clean out the sewer pipes at the treatment plant ever again. You've always wanted to be in charge of something - and now you are. You're the new sewage treatment operative. You start work on Monday."

The sounds of amusement in the courtroom are quite heartening. While the sewage treatment protocols in the colony are based on a wetlands processing system, the delivery of the blackwater requires maintenance even if the reed-beds don't. Given the vile, smelly nature of the process, and the requirement to undertake a thorough clean down every six weeks, they've never been able to find a volunteer to do the job full time. If Jackson was looking for martyrdom, then he's certainly found it - but not in the way that he expected.

Jim turns to look at Yseult, who is smiling cheerfully, "If they were looking for a crap job to give him, then they couldn't have been more literal, could they?"

"Nope." Jim grins back, "Best of all, he's an even worse politician than I am - so he's got no hope of getting anyone to rise up and set him free of _those_ shackles of oppression."

"Perhaps we can move on now." She says, hopefully.

"That's my view. Just need to convince Taylor."

"Do you think we can?" Malcolm asks, quietly.

"Only one way to find out."


	27. Looking to the Future

**A/N:** Thank you again for the reviews - I'm glad the Jackson solution worked out. He will hardly be lying when he says he has a crap job, though...

And now, alas, we draw to a close; though there is one little surprise at the end!

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Seven

 _Looking to the Future_

Taylor is standing at the balcony again, looking out across the marketplace. While he knows that he's cured, there are also things he can't quite put from his mind - mostly the fact that, as Elisabeth suggested, his mind just doesn't work as quickly as it used to. He's slower on the uptake; decisions come to him more slowly and with more doubts than they once did. While he's still capable of leading the Colony, he's not at his optimum, and that means he needs to start thinking about what comes next.

Malcolm always used to complain at the lack of civilian involvement in the operation of the Colony. It was like a daily dance - Malcolm would gripe, and Taylor would ignore him. The presence of a civilian senior team covered all the bases as far as he was concerned - they advised him, and he made the decisions. Sometimes he would take their advice; sometimes he wouldn't. But now he's finding it harder to decide whether to do so or not - and, to his mind, that's not good enough.

But then, Terra Nova is not going to work if it's run by a committee. Someone needs to be in charge - someone who will respect the Colony's rules and heritage, and who will listen to the voices of those who live in it. He's always done it - well, mostly done it - but that was because it was his dream to create this place, to make it a home for humanity to start again - and, this time, get it right. Everyone who came here did so on that same promise, but his insistence on remaining in charge left him open to discontent - a disaffection that waited for his departure to spring into action, and nearly bring the Colony to its knees.

He's been reading up on various democratic models from around the world - local authorities, governments, town councils - whatever he can find. Less is definitely more - a council with a small number of people on it can get more done - but how does he decide who gets on the council, and who doesn't? How do they represent people? That's the challenge.

It's been three months now since the trial, and he's still no further forward on that. Fortunately, no one's noticed, as there's been so much work to try and make up for the lost crops in the fields. While the locusts didn't devastate their food supply, they made some pretty solid inroads into it, and Chris has been working with his various teams to plant up some other food crops that can either catch up with the existing plantings, or will withstand the poorer weather later in the year. Then, of course, there was the annual Commemoration - and the sad requirement to add two new names to the memorial at the foot of the Command Centre stairs for the dead of the colony who have no known graves.

He can't put it off for much longer, though. While he never promised a revolution, he knows he's going to get one independently sooner or later if he doesn't act, and he sighs to himself. He's been in charge for so long that it's just so damned _hard_ to let go.

A movement at the bottom of the stairs captures his attention, and he can see Malcolm and Yseult looking up. God, she's starting to show again - a small dome now protruding very slightly from her belly as her baby grows. Smiling, he waves them to come up, and invites them in, "Have you got something for me?"

Given his hopelessness at trying to work out how best to arrange some sort of representation for the colony, he's looked to the Doctor and his Metalworking wife to come up with some ideas independently of his own thoughts. Malcolm's overly analytical mind, and Yseult's altogether freer imagination, seem well matched to creating interesting concepts of all kinds - and a democratic structure seems like something that might fit that process.

Malcolm nods as Yseult sits down in a chair opposite the commander, "We sat down with Jim and Elisabeth last night to get their opinions, as well - but we think the best thing to do is go for a local authority sort of thing. We divide the colony into a small number of wards, and each is represented by a nominated council member. The residents make the nominations, and they vote for their councillor. We just need to accept that it's going to come down to a popularity contest from time to time - but all nominees have the right to refuse the nomination if they don't feel they can serve on a council."

"How many wards?" Taylor asks, "Odd or even numbers?"

"Even, I think." Yseult observes, "Then the Leader gets the casting vote to ensure that a decision gets made."

"We were thinking of four wards in the first instance." Malcolm continues, "that's two hundred and fifty people in each ward - or thereabouts. As the population grows, we can expand the number of wards if it gets too unwieldy. The existing senior staff structure remains in place - but the councillors get an equal say."

"And a leader?"

"That's something that the colony decides as a whole." Yseult says, "That held us up for a while last night - we were wondering how we could set up a system that doesn't leave us with another Bob Parker. Jim suggested limited terms and an overall limit on how many terms a leader can serve - like a President; except we don't call them that. Some people might find that goes to their heads a bit."

"Do we stick with just two nominees?" Taylor asks, intrigued, "It makes things less complicated, but that limits how many people can try for election. Maybe we have a number, and then have knock-out votes."

"That's what we were thinking."

"Whatever we do, it's gonna take a hell of a lot of organising." He sighs, "And we're fresh out of bureaucrats."

"Not necessarily." Yseult is checking her plex, "Diego Romero was studying politics at University - he was only on the boat because Mateo needed him to crew it, and it was summer recess, so he could. He mentioned that he organised a lot of the elections at the University - and it seems that he's a complete whiz at administration, so we've talked to him about a lot of this and, as he hasn't got anything to do, he asked if he could make a project of it. If you're okay with that, then we've got ourselves the first member of our civil service."

Taylor looks impressed, "If the portal delivers people that useful to the Colony every time, then we'll do fine. Get him to work - have some proposals on my desk in the next few weeks. Don't rush it - it needs to be right first time, not after the seventh attempt. Once we've got something to present to the colonists, we'll do it."

* * *

The bar is as busy as ever, now that people feel safe to come in, and Boylan is finding himself back in the rather uncomfortable position of having trouble keeping up with demand for Kreidebier. His complaints are only half-hearted, however, as chaos is not good for business, and a return to order is just what he needs now that he is no longer able to engage in the sort of criminal behaviour that kept his coffers in good condition when people used coins more regularly.

Josh is drying glasses, while Skye is up to her elbows in suds. It's been tough, the last few weeks - they're not married, so a few people felt quite happy to treat her as a single woman, to the point that she was even cornered once or twice by people keen on persuading her that there was no harm in a bit of 'fun' with them. Being a survivor of tougher times even than this, of course, those attempts usually resulted in a knee to the groin, but nonetheless, it was something she could've done without.

"How are we doing?" she asks, fumbling in the water for any lurking teaspoons.

"Nearly done. That's all the glasses, at least."

"Thank God for that. This is the downside of being successful in the hospitality business." Skye examines her water-wrinkled hands with feigned dismay, "I wish I had some rubber gloves."

Josh grins at her, "Can I be an unremitting romantic and say that they're still lovely?"

"As long as you've got a return ticket from Cliché city." She smiles back, "Do you think that's it? That we've finally got past all the upheavals? Every time I think that we've found a way past the troubles that keep coming - something else happens."

He hugs her close, "I guess it keeps life interesting, doesn't it? It'd be boring if things went right all the time. Though I'd like it if they didn't go so spectacularly wrong when they _do_ go wrong."

She smiles, looks up and gives him a kiss on the cheek, "I'll settle for this afternoon not going spectacularly wrong. It's been a while since we had an engagement party."

Now that things have settled down again, people have gone back to work, or found new work, and it seems that the romance that began on a converted fishing trawler has prospered in the cretaceous. It's taken the couple time to settle down in their new surroundings, but both Diego and Janet seem to have taken to it, and news of his proposal spread around the colony like wildfire - just as such things always seem to do. People are eager to celebrate something good after the upheavals caused by a few disaffected field workers, so to have another wedding has been seized upon in hopes of letting bygones be bygones.

Consequently, Julia has been setting aside a decent vintage of berry wine in hopes of a wedding breakfast, while Ninette has been busy at the loom just in case a white wedding dress is required. It takes time to produce sufficient cotton to work with, after all. The only thing that matters is that people aren't being too hasty; and that the happy couple aren't aware that they've caused such a stir. No relationship deserves that kind of pressure.

In the interim, however, there are other things to consider. The Commander has issued an open invitation for people to attend a meeting in the marketplace this afternoon, which always means that something big is going to be announced. Given the troubles that occurred just after his departure into the Badlands, it probably relates to that, "Do you think he's going to stand down?"

Josh looks up, surprised, "I don't think so. Not when there's no one to replace him. I can promise you that Dad won't do it. He looks after the place when the Commander's OTG, but that's as far as it goes. Maybe they've come up with something that we have to vote on."

Skye nods, "That wouldn't surprise me - after the way that Bob Parker was able to claim that he'd give people elections and a say in the running of the colony, it's a logical step that the Commander'd do it." She pauses, "He's not getting any younger."

There are a lot of people in the marketplace as the Commander takes his place on the balcony, "Thank you for coming. After the last few weeks, I think it's pretty clear that we need to look to the future in a way that we haven't before. The way that we lived before the occupation worked well - but we're a small, independent community now, and it's time for me to do more than stand up here and address people. With that in mind, we're going to establish a small community council, with representatives to join the senior staff and communicate how things _really_ are in the colony. The details will be given to everyone, and you'll have two weeks to consider the proposals and make your views known. And I really do want you do tell me if you have other ideas, or think this is a crock. This is _our_ community - not just mine, so your opinions count. Once we've gone through everyone's input, we'll present a final proposal to be voted on. Diego will be overseeing the process, so please send your comments to him."

The news - while expected to some degree - still comes as something of a surprise. The Commander is such a father figure, that the idea of his establishing a civilian structure within his command seems quite alien. Josh is not surprised to see Jim approaching, "We'll be talking this over tonight - with dinner. Are you in?"

Josh nods, "I think so." He turns to Skye, who also nods.

"Great. Be at ours for eighteen hundred. The details should've been sent to everyone's homes by then."

It's a little sooner than that, and Josh is already perusing them as the afternoon draws to its close. There was a time, of course, when he would've ignored such information; but he's not that naïve youth any longer: far from it. Instead, he and Skye are sitting close together as he describes the plans.

"They're going to divide the residential areas into four - and everyone in that area has to nominate a representative. People can nominate themselves if they want - but if there's more than one nominee, then the people in that area vote for one of them. It's a secret ballot - no one's allowed to ask anyone else who they're voting for, and the decision's final. The councillor stays in post for a year, and can serve up to three terms before they're not allowed to stand again."

Skye nods, "That's sensible - the last thing we want is another dictator. What about leadership?"

Josh continues to read, "That's a four-year thing. The whole colony gets a vote in that: minimum age is going to be eighteen. It's the same thing - people can nominate themselves if they want, or they can be nominated. They get to stay in post for four years, but this time they can serve up to four terms - I guess it's going to be harder to get someone to lead the entire colony. It's not an easy job."

"And what if they try to become a dictator?" Skye is nervous of that - and with good reason. The last thing they want is another Tom Jackson or Bob Parker.

"If anyone tries to stay longer, or abuses power, then the Council has the right to impeach them - but they have to do it within very strict boundaries by the look of it. It's not something someone can do on a whim." He smiles at her, "Diego really knows what he's about. I wouldn't have thought of half of this."

Skye leans in close to him and smiles, "That means that you're not a politician. I like that. Half my family were politicians, and they were all slimeballs. We were either nice people who had jobs, or slimeballs who spent their entire lives kissing asses to stay in office. There's _no_ way you'd catch me doing that. I prefer honest work."

"Like being married to me."

"Pardon?" Skye turns, startled.

Setting the plex aside, Josh turns to face her, "I've been leaving it, and leaving it - but it's time to stop doing that. I suppose it started out being not wanting to betray Kara - and then it turned into just putting it off until tomorrow. But I'm not a kid anymore, so I need to stop acting like one. I want to be your husband, Skye. Will you marry me?"

It's probably one of the less conventional proposals of recent times - but it's so…so _Josh_ , that she knows he means it. He is looking into her eyes, his hands holding one of hers. The sincerity is so clear that she doesn't need to think about it.

"Yes." She says, very softly, "I'll marry you."

* * *

Jim is still slightly shell-shocked by the announcement of his son's impending nuptials. What was supposed to be a discussion about the proposed arrangements for a new council in Terra Nova turned immediately into a celebratory party, and they didn't touch upon matters of democracy at all.

That said, no one seems to have had any objections of any substance to the proposals - though there are a few suggestions that are sensible, and which have been added to the plans. Consequently, a new constitution has been written - but it won't be ratified until there's a council to do that.

The division of the residential areas into 'wards' was achieved pretty easily given the layout, and everyone was very keen to get to work on suggesting names for their representatives. Indeed, such is the enthusiasm that each ward has at least three candidates to choose from, and campaigning is beginning in earnest, though only limited activity is allowed. The lack of population would make things very difficult if feuds develop.

At least one person nominated him - in spite of his reminding folk that he was a member of the Senior staff and, consequently, ineligible for nomination. He is, however, popular, so perhaps it's not too surprising. What _is_ remarkable is the number of people who've been nominated who don't have any political interests at all - it seems that politics is not a driving force as much as the knowledge that people are representing ordinary folk rather than just senior staff members doing it all. Certainly, he didn't expect Maddy to be a candidate.

Diego Romero has proved to be just as good an organiser as they thought, and the system they've set up is as secure as they can make it. With Malcolm's help, they've set up booths with iris recognition, so people can only access the voting form if they haven't voted yet, and are eligible to do so. It sounds a bit over the top to do it that way, as people all know each other and get on so well; but Diego is very keen on something he calls 'future-proofing', and the expectation that, in a few decades' time, there'll be a lot more people present to take part in votes.

As a consequence of such speedy voting, and the lack of a need to undertake a count, the results are through by evening, and people are gathering in front of the Command Centre to find out who won a seat.

There are no fancy names for the four wards - they're just '1, 2, 3 and 4' - so the announcements are quick and easily made, "No need to beat around the bush, folks." Taylor says, "It's my pleasure to announce our four new community councillors. For Ward one: Alfredo Costa."

That's no surprise. He won a lot of respect when he chaired the jury at Tom Jackson's trial - not that he lacked it beforehand, of course.

"For Ward two: Ryuu Tanaka."

Equally, no one seems surprised - Ryuu is also well liked and a good man; plus there are a lot of people that are wearing jewellery courtesy of his popular wife, Sozume.

"For Ward three: Sandra Guzman."

Everyone turns to see that the head of the Security teams is beaming at his wife, pleased as punch. She might well be a music teacher, but when did that stop someone being a good person to represent people?

"And last, but not least, for Ward Four: Maddy Shannon."

 _That_ gives Jim pause for thought. In spite of her marriage, and her daughter, he still hasn't quite got over thinking of her as his baby; but now he's going to have her sitting at the table in the Command Centre. How weird…how…wonderful. He starts to grin, delightedly, while Elisabeth takes his hand and smiles with tearful pride. It had nothing to do with them - they live in Ward three - so it just goes to show how much she's grown up and taken her place in the Colony. Something he never thought possible when they first came here; unwell, her lungs in a mess…now she's healthy, a wife, a mother; and a councillor.

 _Don't you dare cry, you wimp_.

"Are you alright?" Elisabeth asks

"I'm fine. Just a bit of grit in my eye."

"Both of them?" she smiles, and laughs as he clasps her in a gigantic hug.

* * *

To say that the last fortnight has been something of a learning curve is an understatement. Everyone's got a lot to learn, and Taylor is uncharacteristically nervous as he takes his place at the head of the table. While there haven't been any arguments, the new councillors aren't too sure yet how much influence they have, so they're a bit tentative.

"Okay. What's happening out there. How about you start, Malcolm?"

Being used to the staff meetings, he immediately flicks at his plex, "Everything's going pretty well in the labs. The data that we got from Falker's laptop is interesting, and it's now gone over to the Eye so that we don't lose it. We're not in danger of finding ourselves in that position yet - but if it serves as a warning for future generations, then it's served its purpose and he didn't die in vain." He flicks again, and tries not to redden at the obvious nature of Yseult's hand resting on his leg, "Er…the crop yields are looking better than expected. Our emergency measures have managed to mitigate at least some of our losses during that locust swarm; so, while things won't be easy, we'll have sufficient stocks to get us through to next year. The work we've done this year looks promising in terms of additional yield, so we could use it either side of the growing season to extend our food supplies. We certainly aren't going to starve."

"Good. What about the portal?"

Malcolm looks surprised, but then remembers that half the people at the table don't know the full details of that escapade. He looks up and addresses the councillors, "I left some probes in the crater, and we stopped to set some relay beacons on the way back. It's not perfect - we can't maintain them - but it gives us some idea of activity there, so once we start to have a new buildup, we can send a retrieval team out there in case people come through. I don't know if we have arrivals every time, but it's better to go there and find no one than stay put and leave survivors unfound. Besides, it means that we can do more research work on the portal. I got a lot of data - but there's a hell of a lot more that I _didn't_ get. Whether we'll be here when it opens next time is something I can't answer - but at least I can lay the ground so that other people can pick up where I left off."

He's relieved at the nods from the councillors - they're not used to him spouting technobabble, and they're still a bit too polite to demand that he speak 'English' like Taylor does when he gets too technical.

"Good. Doctor Shannon - anything to report?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary." She advises, checking her own plex, "A few minor accidents, but the ongoing measures to protect from that scorpion are proving worthwhile, as we've had reports of one or two lurking in the undergrowth again. People have their gaiters on, and the two encounters I know of didn't result in stings."

"I can live with that. Max - what about Sustainable Industries?"

"All doing well, Commander." Yseult removes her hand from her husband's thigh to flick through her plex, which embarrasses him even more, "We're turning out good quality iron regularly now, and the work to recreate the Gilchrist-Bessemer process is getting close given that we can't do it on the industrial scale. Ninette's worked overtime to get enough white cotton together for our coming weddings - we'll be seeing the results very soon, of course - and our experiments with synthetic compounds and natural fibres have got to a point where we'll be weaving some heavy-duty waterproof fabrics now that we've finished with wedding dress material."

She's not surprised at the indulgent smiles all round. Everyone's looking forward to the two forthcoming weddings.

"Shannon?" Taylor prompts.

"Much the same as last time." Jim reports, "Rosters are back on track, we've gone right round the fence line and cut back all the encroachment, and the protective measures are all checked and maintenance carried out as needed. I'll send next month's rosters to you this afternoon for approval."

"Good." The Commander looks across to the newest people at the table, "I know it's a bit soon - but is there anything we've missed?"

There's a moment of silence before Sandra speaks, still a little shy, "I've had some people come to me about a drainage problem in sector six - there's some backup in one or two of the properties. Is that not a bit trivial?"

"Not for the people with drainage issues." Taylor smiles at her, "Alfredo, could you take that up with Raj, please?"

"Will do." He starts making a note on his plex, "If anyone's got any issues like that, then I'm happy to take them up."

"Anything else?"

At first, it seems that no one's got anything to add, but Maddy looks up, "I don't know if this is a bit trivial as well, but people in my area are concerned that there are a lot of insects getting into their houses at the moment."

"It's not trivial, Maddy." Malcolm disagrees, "If we don't know there's a problem, we can't do something about it. I'll ask Clarice to investigate that. It might be that something's come up in someone's garden that's attracting them. We had an ancestor of _Amorphophallus Titanum_ in a garden about six years ago. None of the botanists noticed it, and the person who had it didn't get rid of it because it looked exotic. God, did we know about it when it flowered. So did the local insects. They don't call the modern version 'corpse flower' for nothing."

By the time they've finished, all manner of supposedly 'trivial' issues have been raised - and their collective number suggests that the overall discontent would be anything _but_ trivial. No wonder people thought no one was listening to them. No one would've thought to bring this to a surgery, but at the same time, people were trying to sort it out themselves and failing. At least that won't happen anymore.

"Thanks everyone." Taylor wraps up, "I've found this very useful - I'll see you all next week. If there are any issues that come up in the interim, just get in touch."

He watches as everyone files out, and then sits at his desk, looking a little uncomfortable.

"What's up?" Jim asks, intrigued.

"Next week."

"What about it?"

"Skye's asked me to give her away. I assumed she'd ask her mother."

"She sees you as a surrogate dad, Taylor - who else would she ask? I imagine Deborah's revelling in being the mother of the bride."

"Yeah - but it still feels odd." He admits, "I never saw myself giving a bride away - not without a daughter. I assumed that someone would do the honours for the bride when Lucas got married. But look where that went."

Now Jim gets it. He sits down, "You mean a lot more to her than you did to Lucas - but I think you know that. He loved you once, but someone else took all of that and ruined it."

"I know. I shouldn't let his ghost come in and ruin this - like he did when he was alive. I don't recall him every saying that he'd haunt me - but God, it feels like it sometimes."

"And now it feels worse?"

"It'll pass. Skye's been more of a kid to me than Lucas has for a long, long time. She deserves to be happy after all she went through; I just don't want to wreck it. I have a habit of wrecking the lives of kids who get too close to me."

"You sound like every nervous father of the bride in history." Jim says sagely, "I was pretty bad myself when Maddy married Mark. It's amazing how many things come back to bite you when you're that nervous. Besides, it's not as weird as Janet and Diego - she's asked Malcolm to give her away because he let her rescue a toy dog she had."

"Okay - that's weirder than mine." Taylor agrees, rousing himself from his poor mood, "Come on - let's get out and do some patrolling. I know that Boylan's meant to be an honest man these days, but it doesn't hurt to check."

* * *

Somehow, the weather gods of the Cretaceous always seem to know when there's a wedding on - or, in this case, two. The weather is set fair, and the sun high as people gather in the orchard - which seems to have become the _de rigeur_ wedding location in the Colony. Most people happily attended the union of Janet and Diego yesterday, as they had no family to attend, so everyone else filled in for that omission, and not a few people are nursing sore heads this morning. It was, to be sure, something of an awkward situation given that Diego is a Catholic, while the Chaplain is an Episcopalian, but they found a way through everyone's sensibilities, and the resulting ceremony was very touching.

Today, however, the couple are well known to the colonists, so most people are thus waiting to party later on once the families have finished their celebrations.

It had been a standing joke that Josh would ask Boylan to be his best man, despite denials all round, but instead it's a friend more of his own age: a gangling youth with a cheerful expression by the name of Bryan. For Jim and Elisabeth, it's weird to be sitting on the right hand side of the congregation this time; but Zoe is relieved that she's not been asked to be a flower-girl again. She's just a bit too old for the 'cute' label that such a task inspires - so she's happy to sit with her mom and watch with the grownups.

As seems to be traditional now, Skye arrives aboard a flat-bed rhino decorated with flowers and swags of pink fabric, and descends to join the Commander, dressed in a sober suit rather than his military fatigues, of course. Everyone's eyes are on the dress, naturally, a fifties-inspired creation with a fitted bodice and flared skirt that looks unusual on a woman who normally wears cargo pants like everyone else. Her hair has also been put up, with large ox-eye daisies threaded into the braids, while a carefully arranged bouquet contains a similar number of daisies to match.

Watching as his son ties the knot, Jim takes Elisabeth's hand, remembering just how much Josh didn't want to leave Chicago. He lacked Maddy's incisive intelligence, and Zoe's remarkable good sense - but he's found a maturity of his own that Jim recalls as being very akin to his own at the same age. It's not worth wondering how things might've panned out if Josh hadn't been so desperate to bring Kara to Terra Nova. She'd certainly be alive - but would he be happy? It's impossible to know - but with that door closed once and for all, he's found a new life to live - and a good woman to share it with.

Their vows are conventional, promises to one another to love, honour and cherish; and their obvious joy in one another radiates outward. Could Skye look any happier? Probably not - but then, she was once trapped in an impossible situation: a sick mother being held hostage against her good behaviour, and being forced to spy against someone who had taken her in and given her the support of a father when she had lost hers. Now, she's getting married, while that surrogate father has given her away and smiles at her alongside a recovered mother who dabs at her eyes as all mothers of the bride are obliged to do.

Perhaps they can really settle down now. The mystery of the figurehead has been solved, they know that there's a portal out there that spits open every three decades or so, and they'll know to be ready from now on. Perhaps, in a century, when the timelines coincide, there might be trouble - but as long as people know what happened, they'll be prepared to meet it.

He looks up to see that the rings have been exchanged, and makes himself concentrate on something other than reverie - just in time for the Chaplain to announce that Josh and Skye are now married and he may kiss his wife.

Another of his kids married - another family settling down in a clean world with a bright future. It sucks as much as it makes him happy; but at least he's still got Zoe for a while, so that sense of age isn't encroaching as much as it might have done. Though the knowledge that he doesn't have to make any speeches tonight is certainly helping on that score.

Sal's catering is reminiscent of the fare she offered when Maddy got married, though Jim eschews the tofu as always, and relaxes, sipping at some fizzy wine that isn't too gassy and holding Elisabeth's hand. Skye is circulating - as all brides are required to do - while Josh does the honours across the other side of the bar. Taylor is working his way through a pile of cards with prompts on, while Bryan just looks as though he's going to puke with nerves.

"Happy, darling?" Elisabeth asks, quietly.

"Oh, let me count the ways." He smiles back at her, "The one good thing about these problems is that they always seem to resolve with weddings. I just hope that we don't have something like this happen before Zoe gets married."

"I can't see what would, Jim." She says, taking his hand, "Our enemies can't reach us, the remains of their soldiers are gone, and we know where the figurehead came from, and what it means for us in the future. All we have to do now is live, work, and get on with the prospering."

"Sounds good to me." Jim looks across to where Malcolm is sitting with Yseult, "She looks ready to pop."

"Not yet. Another month or so to go." Elisabeth says, "Though I imagine she can't wait. This is always the hardest part of the pregnancy - you're half the size of a house, your back hurts and you need to go to the loo at least five times an hour. At least we're prepared for the birth. Sue's got the home-birth setup all ready again. I don't think I'll have any more success in getting Max into the infirmary than I did the first time round." She looks across the top table, "Do you think I should go and get an anti-emetic for Bryan? He really looks like he's on the verge."

Fortunately, the speech is completed without unfortunate flight to a receptacle, and Taylor finds himself unable to put his own speech off any longer. Oddly, now that he's standing up, the words on his cards seem not to make any sense anymore.

"Er…" he fumbles briefly, but then stands up mores straight, "This feels weird; I'm not gonna lie - but it's a good weird. I always assumed someone else would be doing this at my son's wedding - but that wasn't to be, so instead I get to do it for someone who's as good as a daughter to me."

He has no recollection of what follows, other than the occasional repetition of the words 'Skye', 'Chess' and 'Proud'. He doesn't mention the spy thing - after all, that was something over which she had no control, and she did what she could to mitigate the damage her information might wreak upon the Colony. Not to mention her help with the plan to cut them off from the future.

"I may not be your father by blood, Skye." He finishes, realising now that he can remember what he's saying, "But I don't think that matters in place of Paternal pride - because I am. I'm proud of the girl you were, and of the woman you've become, and I have no doubt that Terra Nova's a better place for your being here. So - I give you my very best wishes and love as a dad for his daughter. You've picked a good man from a good family, and I couldn't be happier for you. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mr and Mrs Shannon."

He sits down with a sigh of relief, the sound concealed by the waves of applause.

* * *

"God, you're so antsy again, Pete." Yseult looks irked as her forester buzzes around her like an annoying house-fly, "I go on maternity leave tonight, so you don't have to worry about me dropping a baby in your lap."

Once again, she's refused to be told the sex of the child, wanting instead to find out when the baby's born. That she can't wait for it to happen is an understatement, though she remembers it was hardly the most pleasant of experiences giving birth to Erin. She's been obliged to abandon her bicycle again, and Malcolm again gives her lifts to and from work - but tonight he's promised to get something in from the marketplace and give her a rest from cooking, as he doesn't like the conformity to stereotypical roles in the household, but he genuinely seems to be the worst cook that ever lived.

"You're cutting it a bit fine, aren't you?" Pete fusses, "This one's due in days, isn't it?"

"Stop panicking. Malcolm's coming in five minutes and my impending labour'll be out of your hair." She smiles at him. She knows it's because he cares - but he's a man, and they just don't get it. Malcolm's no better, and he's been through one birth already.

The fussing continues as he helps her into the passenger seat of the rover, and Malcolm's failure to assure him doesn't really help. They're all behaving like she's a bomb about to go off, for heaven's sake.

"Do you want a hand with the seatbelt?" Malcolm offers, only to have his hand swatted away, "I suppose that's a 'no' then."

"Just get me home." She snaps, fed up with the endless fussing.

"Okay." His meekness is blatantly false, but it has the desired effect, and she sits back with a sigh, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I'm told that these days feel longer than the first three months combined."

"They most assuredly do. Much as I hated labour, to get through it and come out the other side would be most welcome right now."

Dinner is quiet, but the meal that Malcolm has brought back from the market is very good, and they settle down on the sofa to relax for at least a while. Assuming that the squirming baby will let them.

"How's Maddy doing on the council?"

"Very well - in fact they all are. Once they worked out that nothing's too trivial to mention, it was plain sailing. If anyone claims that we don't listen to people's problems, then no one'll believe it. You'll be pleased to learn," He adds, "That a certain Mr Jackson has been obliged to clear out three clogged drains in a week."

"My heart bleeds." She says, with absolutely no sympathy whatsoever.

It's nice to simply snuggle together; while they've been back together now for nearly the entire term of her pregnancy, Yseult still doesn't like it when Malcolm's not close by, and they both missed one another very deeply while they were apart. The only sound in the room is their breathing, and the ticking of a carriage clock that sits on one of the display shelves. Malcolm is not surprised to find that she's fallen asleep on him again.

"Come on, sleepyhead. Time for bed, I think."

The little clock's tiny bells chime the hour of three in the morning when he is woken by a sharp jab in his ribs, "I'm up…what?" vaguely he realises it's still dark.

"It's time, Malcolm."

"Time for what? Oh. Er…" immediately he is very, very wide awake, "Do you want me to run you a bath?"

"That would be very nice." Yseult sits up a little, and moans at a contraction, "I'd like to avoid a load of washing, so _before_ my waters break would be good."

"I'll see to it." She's much calmer than last time, thank God. Just as well one of them is.

By the time Sue's arrived, Yseult is relaxing in the water, sitting back and breathing through another contraction with Malcolm holding her hand and doing the same, albeit without the contraction part. "How are we doing?"

"My waters have broken, Sue. That's all I can tell you right now, though the contractions are regular, and strong." Yseult reports, "I'd appreciate some pain relief if you've got it."

"No problem. I'll set you up with the gas and air." Sue turns to Malcolm, "Could you give us a minute? I just need to see how dilated Max is."

He nods, "Can I get you a drink of something?" Anything to feel at least vaguely useful.

"I'll let you know."

It doesn't take long, and Sue calls back out, "We're a bit further along than last time, Malcolm. It looks like this labour's going to be a bit quicker than the first."

"Is that normal?" Yseult asks, intrigued rather than nervous.

"Every labour's different, Max. Some can be over in less than eight hours - but some can last nearly a day. It just depends on how long it takes for the cervix to dilate sufficiently. It's quicker this time around for you - though I'm not making any guesses."

"I'll accept quicker." Yseult says, then pulls a face and starts inhaling the gas and air again.

"I'll put the kettle on." Malcolm offers.

"That'd be great." Sue smiles at him, "If you could bring some water through as well, that would be nice."

By dawn, it's clear that things are progressing more quickly, and Sue is very pleased, "Right, that's ten centimetres. Feel free to push all you want, Max."

The water in the bath has long gone cold, so she's back on the bed again, propped up with pillows and her husband's arm about her shoulders as she complies with the instructions of the midwife. As before, there are outbursts of astonishing invective, all of it in German, but she clings to Malcolm's hands and is grateful for the sips of water he offers between contractions. That almost instinctive closeness between them as strong as ever.

"That's the head!" Sue exults, "Not much longer now, Max. This is the hardest bit."

"Don't I know it!" Yseult says, breathlessly, and begins to push again.

* * *

Elisabeth is checking her plex every five minutes, and Jim sighs, "That's not going to make the baby come any faster."

Finally a message pings its arrival, and she looks up at him, "You were saying?"

"Well?" She's not the only one on tenterhooks.

"It's a boy." Elisabeth's face is wreathed in a smile, "Erin's got a little brother. Sue's just making sure that the placenta's fully detached."

"Well that was good news right up until the last bit." Jim says, putting down his toast and very red-looking berry jam, "So, how many nanoseconds before you head over there?"

"You know me too well."

By the time she arrives, the new arrival has been washed, wrapped in a blanket and is resting upon Yseult's chest. She, too, has been tidied up somewhat, and is demurely covered up to accept the very few visitors permitted at such an early stage, "Congratulations, both of you, he looks very well indeed."

"Everything's looking good, Elisabeth." Sue reports, looking up from her plex, where she's making her final notes before she goes, "If there's anything you want to check?"

"Believe me, you know more than I could ever hope to, Sue. I'm a surgeon - I know nothing at all about midwifery."

"I wouldn't have minded having some doctors in Orlando who thought like that."

"No one's perfect." She turns back to Yseult, "I won't stay long - I know you're very tired. Would you like Maddy to look after Erin this morning while you get some sleep?"

"I'll do it." Malcolm shakes his head, "She's just old enough to know what's going on, but not old enough to know what it means. I don't want her thinking that she's been replaced."

Elisabeth's eyes widen; he never used to be so aware of such things - Yseult's influence has really worked with him, "That sounds like a good idea. I'll leave you to it - I just wanted to see the little one."

It doesn't take long for the news to spread around the colony, and everyone's clamouring for details - health, weight and suchlike. They know that it's a boy, but no more than that. Despite the nosiness, people are too polite to harass the couple, and they're allowed a day and a half of privacy before the Commander knocks on their door.

"Can I come in?"

"Of course." Malcolm opens the door more widely to admit him, and he smiles cheerfully at Erin, who is very close to her daddy, "Hi sweetheart."

Yseult is resting on the couch, their new arrival in her arms, while Malcolm lifts Erin into his arms and carries her across to join their gathering, "I take it this little one has a name?"

She nods, "Yes - we named Erin after our mothers, and we decided we'd name a boy after our fathers, so allow me to introduce you to Gerhard Duncan Wallace."

"My pleasure." Taylor smiles, "You know the colony's clamouring to meet this little one, right?"

"Of course." She smiles back, "Given that tomorrow's Harvest Festival, it seems appropriate to do the honours then, doesn't it?"

"In that case, how can I refuse?"

Given the disruption caused by the locusts, and the extension of the season through the planting of emergency crops, the Harvest Festival was postponed to coincide with Solstice - though they're holding it the day before, and having the two holidays combined. This year's theme is something akin to a 'Midwestern Idyll', celebrating the farming heritage of the American Midwest. While the harvest has been messed up somewhat by the locust infestation, there's still a good deal to celebrate. There's enough food to get them through the coming year, disaffected colonists have been given a voice, and they've solved the mystery of that figurehead. It's still a while before anyone can use it in the future, as it's opening too far back in the past for them to use it yet. Once it gets to 2150-ish at that end, of course, things might be different - but they can prepare for it. They've got a good century to do that, so no one needs to stress today. No - they can celebrate another good year in the Colony, and just enjoy themselves for the day.

The children present a set of dances, accompanied by the small folk band, to the delight of everyone, while Sharon has put together an arrangement of folk songs from the region for the choir to sing. It might not have the same impact as _Jerusalem_ , but the music is a joy to listen to, and not a few people are able to join in, as they remember the songs from when they were kids.

As night draws in, Taylor steps up onto the stage to make his customary speech, "I must admit that I was wondering if I'd get the chance to do this again." He admits, people's applause fades, "Thanks to Doctor Shannon, and to Mira, I'm here and I'm doing pretty good." Everyone knows now what happened to him - no one saw any point in pretending otherwise, "It's been another tough year, and it's been hard for a lot of people. But you always come through - and we're celebrating again. We know a lot more than we did a year ago, and we have a new system of government. In time, you'll have someone else standing up here and boring the hell out of you - and it's someone you'll choose amongst yourselves. You should all be proud of your achievements as a community. It's time for us to grow up, and I'm happy to see that starting to happen. Now - before I tell you all to start dancing," He beckons the Wallaces up to the stage, "You're all dying to know - so allow me to introduce our newest colonist - just a couple of days old: Gerhard Duncan Wallace."

He pauses to allow for a large wave of applause which - fortunately - Gerhard sleeps right through, "Congratulations to Max and Malcolm - and also to Erin." He turns to the little girl, "That's one lucky little boy - he's got you to be his sister."

She huddles shyly into Malcolm's leg as the applause breaks out again, and he lifts her into his arms with a smile.

"I seem to have that affect on children." Taylor says, smiling with a deliberately fake abashed air, "Right - that's it from me. Get partying people!"

He pauses to acknowledge the cheers, before returning to his habitual eyrie. There were times when he would imagine that Alicia was with him here, watching the happy scenes below; but having had her rather more literally present than she should've been, he doesn't do it anymore.

"I'd ask why you're not dancing; but given that you never do, I'd be wasting my breath."

He turns to see Skye standing beside him, and smiles at her, "I'm the world's worst dancer; you know that."

"Good point."

"You don't usually come up here."

"I know - but I wanted you to know something. We both did." She looks back down to the bottom of the stairs where Josh is standing.

"Why isn't he coming up?"

"We want to keep it out of general circulation - just for a bit. If he comes up as well, then people might figure it out."

"Figure what out?"

"You've been my surrogate dad for a long time." She smiles him, "I just wanted you to know that you'll be a surrogate grandfather by next harvest."

His eyes widen, "Congratulations - both of you. How long have you known?"

"We found out today. Mom knows - and you do. But that's it for now - it's a very early stage. Elisabeth only picked it up because I went in for a routine medical check." She smiles, and gives him a peck on the cheek, "I just wanted you to know."

"I'm grateful." He watches as she retreats, and returns her husband, who gives her a hug and looks up at him, giving a slight wave. He responds with a slight nod.

So he's going be a grandpa. Something that Lucas would never have given him…no - enough of Lucas. They've shaken off the last legacy of that damaged young man in the discovery of that portal, and the knowledge that no one can use it against them for a century or more. Assuming anyone wants to even try it.

He thinks back to what he was told about the crew of the _Polly Constance_. He hadn't been present for the reading of the log - but Malcolm filled him in on the details. Their ordeal had been hellish - but thanks to the discovery of that figurehead, three people are safely living in the colony now who would otherwise have been dead. Perhaps they didn't die entirely in vain, then.

He'll go and see Alicia tomorrow as he always does at Solstice - to fill her in on the latest news. He has little recollection of his conversations with her when he hallucinated her, but she's still in his mind's eye as clearly as she was when she used to stand before him. He'll always miss her - but she knew that life moved on, and he does at least recall that promise he made to her before he saw her for the last time in the infirmary. Hallucination it might've been - but he meant every word of that promise.

There's a future stretching out for Terra Nova that's untroubled by invaders, mysteries or internal strife - and he can't wait to grasp it.

Hell - why stay up here? So what if he moves like a horse with its legs in splints? Why not go and enjoy himself like everyone else does?

He looks about one more time with a smile, then heads down the stairs to join the dance.


End file.
